Things on my Mind.

When I finally rolled out of bed this morning, a little later than normally because I had no plans at all for today, and filled the kettle for a cup of tea I looked at the smart meter which sits right by the breakfast counter. At first I thought it had gone wrong, perhaps it was broken? But no, everything else looked fine and I had to believe the rather alarming figure the meter showed. By midday, the total consumption for the day so far, without using any electricity except that first cup of tea and things like fridge and freezer, clocks and other stand-byes, had reached the charge that even last week would be my total cost for an ordinary day without laundry, vacuum cleaning or other heavy uses of electricity. Twice the cost already and in October energy prices are increasing by another 80%! And again in January. There are people in this country whose income is less than the cost of their energy. How are they going to manage? It's utterly frightening. And winter's just around the corner.

At the same time there are "preppers", millionaires and billionaires, I read this morning, who are discussing among themselves and with consultants, how best to organise life in underground bunkers come the inevitable collapse of society, for whatever reason. Climate change, mass migration, nuclear winter, a plague worse than Covid, you name it, they are preparing for it. Or so they think. Several of them have already retained small armies to defend their underground fortresses. When it's all over and they crawl back into whatever light of day there still is, do they think that their money will see them through? Money will be worthless in a post-apocalyptic world and they themselves will be surplus to requirements. Strikes me that only skilled people will survive, bakers, gardeners, engineers, etc. and any Navy Seal who knows the whereabouts of the preppers' food and water stores will make damn sure they will get their share of it, by whatever means.

For those of you who say 'don't believe everything you read' this very long and reputable article named names, quoted sources and was signed off by a 'consultant' who had been hired to advise the tech titans.

Some of you have asked "is the shroud + scaffolding gone?" No it isn't, and not likely to for some time, the very least until the end of October. As if I weren't miserable enough yet. I have cut small holes and gaps into the shroud, but I will soon be cutting larger windows. I have asked my solicitor to explore if I can have compensation. If only it weren't so expensive to involve legal experts like solicitors and judges.

On a lighter note: I watched the 1940 film of Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' with Greer Garson, Maureen O'Sullivan and Laurence Olivier on TV at the weekend. (Do those names mean anything to people nowadays other than to such as me at my advanced age?) I have seen many newer versions on the BBC, some very recent, and I have to admit that the MGM 1940s version was a bit of a letdown. Large chunks of plot were left out, the women wore clothes from different eras, Regency customs were mercilessly adulterated, and the characters hardly developed from beginning to end of the film. Jane Austen's old dragon Lady Catherine de Burgh was turned into a fond aunt, I ask you. Mr. Darcy did not rise from the lake in his frilly shirt as Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy did in the 1995 version, much the best in my opinion of all the many adaptations. 

And then best news of all: it's finally raining!

Guns in America

I had never heard of gun buyback events until I read about it during one of my idle news scrollings. So, you live in the US, could do with a little money top up; what to do? Swap one your old guns for $150, that's what.

The queue of cars was long, the drivers waving every kind of gun about. Not that I would know the difference between a hacksaw and a handgun but even I could see that these were dangerous weapons.

Drivers were being interviewed, the common denominator was that none of them saw any harm in them or their possession. From handguns to assault rifles, they were fine with all of them.

The comment which brought me up short was: "I like guns, if I counted them I'd say I have about thirty back home. To me guns mean freedom. We have freedom in America and we don't let anyone take that away from us. In fact, what I'm probably going to do is turn this one in, get my $150 and buy one for my son whose birthday is coming up. He wants one for his birthday." The boy, no more than maybe 11 or 12 years old, was sitting right next to him, sheepishly staring out of the window straight ahead.

One old fellow trotted out the usual explanation: "Guns don't kill people, it's people who kill people. Guns are good. Bad guys are bad guys."

Only one middle aged woman in the whole of that long chain of cars seemed to be neutral, neither for nor against. I have this gun - she showed the camera a small handgun - I have never used it and never will; I don't need it. But I need $150." 

In the UK the police have the occasional "handing-in knives-event.  But you don't get paid;  here, carrying a knife is illegal, - unless you can prove it is carried for a good reason -  and the access the public have to guns is very tightly controlled by law.  There is less gun crime in the UK than anywhere else in the world.

What to do?

I've been struggling, the black dog came down for a visit and, as always when that happens, I felt unable to blog. You all appear so positive, upbeat, competent, even-minded in the posts I read that it's almost embarrassing to admit to my failings. I blame Covid and the solitude caused by Covid.

I've been having poor sleep as well, many hours of wakefulness when the thought carousel whirls and twirls; in the end I give up and go downstairs to the warm kitchen, pour a glass of sherry, have some crackers, read a bit and am shocked when I realise that it's almost morning and sleep has once again been unattainable. Naturally, that leaves me even more depressed and tired.

Last night was a bit better. What a difference a few hours of sleep makes. 

I wrote the above very late on Sunday evening, still feeling a tad sorry for myself but having sent the black dog into kennels for a while. 

So, what to do indeed.

First of all, when I got up, even before making breakfast, I rooted around in the music cabinet ( no longer holding sheet music since Beloved died) for some mood changers. In the olden days, when we still listened to radios back in the old country, Mum always had Sunday morning concerts on. So music was the first go-to, some CDs from the classical collections, a Beethoven symphony (Pastoral) on full volume. Music is magic, Beethoven helped right away. Toasted sweet fruit bread, tea, a sliver of well aged cheese, marmalade, and my inner woman was quieted. Roasted duck breast (a repetition of Christmas dinner) and a tasty lentils mess for a late lunch, followed by a long phone call with my son, both of us opening up about aspects of our lives which are not entirely pleasing, helped things along nicely. 

A walk in the garden next; looking closely with open eyes, I found a few welcome friends, much too early some of them. In spite of a mostly grey day I was cheered by aconites and hellebores in the woodland garden,

and snowdrops everywhere else, carpets of them. Ditto cyclamen.

I've taken and posted so many pictures of all three of them in the past I don't want to bore readers of this blog by posting yet more.

In the evening I finished off Frederik Backman's "My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and...." . I have enjoyed his humorous yet slightly bizarre writing (if you've read "A Man Called Ove" you'll know what I mean: depth and comedy at the same time. Backman is definitely one of my recently discovered favourites for a rainy afternoon.

A couple of documentaries on the BBC came next: the delightful and evocative "Wonders of the Celtic Deep". about animals and birds (are birds animals? Hm, yes, they must be) on the Pembrokeshire coast of Wales, the nearest stretch of ocean to Shropshire, and then, deeply disturbing, the beginning of a Paul Theroux series called Forbidden America about the impact of social media on US society; he begins the series by meeting the new online influencers of the far right. As faaaar right as can be, deeply frightening, in fact. Normally, I avoid such programmes. A pity that I should end the day on such a distressing topic. Maybe not the best idea after a few weeks of the black dog.

However, he has stayed away today too in spite of the scaffolding having gone up next door. No doubt I'll be woken by the noise of metal on metal tomorrow morning.

The Dreaded Plague and a Very Expensive Haircut

First it was Brexit, then the floods and now Coronavirus.
The various news media have all been obsessed with just one subject at a time and there’s no getting away from it.

I have started to look at my friends with a very gimlet eye and those that I know to be of the hither-and-thither-shuffling persuasion I will not see much of while this whole virus business is going on. I have no problem with people who travel, use distance public transport and have a hectic social life at any other time, but not now. Over 70s are encouraged to remain relatively stationary and as most of us don’t go out to work, a few weeks of fixed aboding shouldn’t be too onerous. I have some extra provisions in, plenty of books, a garden for pottering, birds to watch, music to listen to, fellow bloggers to interact with, and locals whom I can see when the need moves me. I am on steroids for asthma and therefore have a weakened immune system. Deliberately exposing myself to catching the virus would be silly. It’ll be unlucky enough to catch it involuntarily.

So this is me for a bit.


I went for a haircut the other day, a regular 5-weekly event which takes a fairly small outlay and a car journey of no more than 30 minutes total there and back. It was one of the cold and wet specials England goes in for with abundant gusto and I was looking forward to getting back beside the Aga. It’s a very narrow, winding country road which makes it difficult to go fast and I was taking my time, a typically rolling English road made by the rolling English drunkard. Almost back in Valley’s End the disaster happened. I hit a deep pothole, filled with water and therefore invisible, and first the front tyre, then the back tyre, burst. It was an explosive sound and I was momentarily thrown and quite scared. Once I collected my wits I knew I couldn’t stay where I was, anyone coming round the bend would have hit me, so I limped the car a few hundred meters, very slowly, leaning on its right side, until I could safely pull it off the lane. It’s never a bad idea to be close to your particular mechanic, ever since we moved here we’ve used the same chap and it only took him 10 minutes to come and rescue me. He drove me home, then picked up the car. He was back before evening, all four tyres present and correct.

Insurance companies don’t cover pothole damage. This is deemed to be an ‘at-fault’ claim. So, as well as paying an excess, you could lose some of your no-claims bonus, and risk higher premiums in future.

I was interested in the etymology of ‘pothole’  : a depression or hollow in a road surface caused by wear or subsidence. From dialectal pot (“pit, hollow, cavity”) +‎ hole in Middle English.

Some say potholes are so called because of the potters who dug up chunks of clay from the Roman Empire's smooth roadways, more than 3,000 years ago. That explanation is more romantic but possibly less likely than the ordinary etymological one.

The Taxman, Viruses, Kindness and Otherwise

There is just about still time to wish you all a happy and peaceful new year. Had I waited until tomorrow, being February, it might have been both embarrassing and possibly even offensive. If only we could all assume that 2020 will be less harrowing than 2019 was, what with the horror news from so many parts of the world. Although the WHO’s warning of a global epidemic caused by an unknown strain of coronavirus doesn’t give cause for much optimism for the next few weeks.

Talking of the virus, one of the Ladies Who Lunch brought it up as a subject and the oldest member of the group, at 92 at least a decade ahead of the next oldest member, instantly remarked :”Well, I hope it doesn’t come here.” And, I am certain, she was definitely not thinking of anyone’s wellbeing but her own. It surprised me, I would think that at 92 continued life is precarious anyway. There was no empathy for anyone suffering the effects of the virus, which one would consider to be the automatic response to start with, just “not me please,” Does one get more selfish the older one gets? Of course, nobody, me included, welcomes any kind of illness, world-wide or localised, but a little of the milk of human kindness towards others goes a long way to make life pleasant. Or am I wrong? Too much rose-tint?

After two months of silence from me there may not be anyone interested in my thoughts. I developed a positive aversion to using my computer. I spent hours on the iPad and my phone, checking up on news and opinion pieces, but couldn’t bring myself to open the Mac. The reason is positively weird: I had the greatest trouble accessing the taxman’s site. Since October I have struggled to convince HMRC (Her Maj’s Revenue and Customs for those of you lucky not to have dealings with them) that I exist, that I have lived and worked and paid taxes here for decades, and that all I wanted was to be allowed to continue with the latter part in retirement. Do you think they believed me? Endless repeats of trying to gain access, endless rebuffs; each time I was told : you have tried to prove your identity too many times, come back in two days’ time. I sent emails, requests for assistance, even a long and heartfelt letter, all without success. So, since I use my Mac for official communications, (as well as blogging), it became my enemy, because HMRC remained closed to me. In the end I rang them. In an hour long call the first person I was referred to couldn’t help; the next person, a superior tax adviser person, scratched her head and was willing to cut me off when she was equally as flummoxed as the first.

I have to say that I am very good at begging and pleading and announcing my great age, and therefore great need, to all and sundry in the cause of soliciting assistance. Quite shameless, that’s me. So, once I had a real life person on the line rather than an uncaring computer, I begged and pleaded for all I was worth, even explaining that I was quite likely to be deported if I couldn’t prove my willingness to pay the correct taxes. I forgot to say that one of the questions the soulless computer threw at me many times, was, “do you have a valid British passport?” I don’t, but what has that to do with the price of fish, i.e. tax payments?

The superior tax adviser person softened and, during a further hour long phone conversation, dreamt up a whole new persona for me, going back to my tax records of years back. In the process she and I discovered that I have two “Unique (yes, unique) Tax References, two addresses, and two names. I think I am going to start next year’s tax returns right at the start, i.e. next April. And perhaps I’ll use a paper return. Last year I paid my accountant £600 to fill in my tax return, I am not willing to be fleeced again for work I have already mostly done myself, so now that this year’s return is done I am hoping that next year’s will proceed more smoothly.

I should mention that Christmas was fun. Ten days beforehand my son came; he put up the tree, with me giving instructions. We had  Christmas music, a festive dinner, some convivial family chat and rekindled old memories. This visit, on his own, is becoming a tradition I love. He also took me to the county town for a shopping trip; he carried my purchases between shops and car, which makes it all so much easier for me. I quite dread having to stumble my way through crowds, burdened with bags.

My friends were the real stars of my Christmas. Sue said I might as well come for Christmas Eve dinner as well as Christmas Day itself, which was really kind of her. She had some houseguests too and we all got on very well - no Brexit fallings out - and after a lengthy and leisurely dinner we read ’The Importance of Being Earnest’ with me taking over the role of Lady Bracknell. Halfway through the read-through my voice started to go which made it all the more grittily posh, just what is needed for the part. It was great fun and so much more so than slumping in a chair, replete with overindulgence and half drunk as well.

My voice going was a harbinger of the chest infection to come, which started more or less on Boxing Day and only stopped when the practice nurse forced me to take a course of steroids after New Year. I was really quite poorly with a cough to rattle every tooth in my head. The infection was doubly disturbing because I have recently been diagnosed with a recurrence of my childhood asthma. Apparently that is not uncommon, childhood asthma will frequently show itself in old age, when we become more susceptible to allergies. Strange that, you’d think we’d have become inured to many infections because we’ve had and survived so many of them through life. Not so, it seems.

I have mentioned Brexit but once today; in common with many friends I am sick and tired of the whole business, depressed too. In an hour’s time I am off to a Brexit wake party for remainers only.
I’ll be back here soon, unless we all throw ourselves off the castle battlements.

Liar Liar Pants On Fire

In the era of Donald Trump and Brexit, Oxford Dictionaries has declared “post-truth” to be its international word of the year 2016.

US election and EU referendum drive popularity of adjective.....

.......defined by the dictionary as  “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”, editors said that use of the term “post-truth” had increased by around 2,000% in 2016 compared to last year. The spike in usage, it said, is “in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States”.  

Well, there we are then, it’s official. Telling lies is the new normal,  accepted if not acceptable. Morally defensible? Maybe even that. The end justifies the means. And so on.

What will we tell children?  Tell the truth or each lie will make your nose grow longer? If you tell lies nobody will believe you when you tell the truth?  Even if you shout ‘fire’ and there really is one and you are in danger of burning to death? (It’s called ‘putting the fear of God into children - I hope we don’t really do that to them anymore.)

When I was in junior school our teacher encouraged us to put on a play about Saint Nicholas, the one who brings good children presents while bad children are threatened with the cane wielded by Ruprecht, Nicholas’ servant. I was a bit of an uppity know-all, not only did I make up the play, I also appropriated to myself the role of Nicholas, dishing out praise and admonishments as I saw fit in my misplaced enthusiasm and infantile eagerness. Most of my fellow class mates received mild praise, a few I told off for minor (imaginary) misdeeds but for just one girl, chosen at utter random, St Nicholas, i.e. me, had a serious face, a slow and ponderous voice and the ultimate accusation: “you tell lies”.

The girl instantly dissolved into floods of tears, sobbing that she never lied, that lying was bad and a sin and that she would never do that. Teacher cradled her in his arms, trying to calm her down, saying how the whole thing was made up and not true and nobody believed that she lied. He threw me a very filthy look, told me to say sorry, to go away and be ashamed of myself for being so unkind. I was crushed, indeed feeling ashamed and guilty and very disappointed that my grand play had come to such an ignominious end. I got carried away, as they say, didn’t know when to stop.

I had accused a class mate of lying; not in a playground rough and tumble way, but seriously, on an important occasion, with teacher and the whole class being present. The poor child’s pitiful sobs took a long time to subside. The fact that I remember it so well all these many years later shows how deeply memorable the incident was, probably not just for me.

Today we know that the Brexiteers led by Johnson and Farage in the UK and election campaign Trumpism in the US have made lying into an art form; the more they lied the more people applauded them. One day after Brexit Farage was asked about that repeatedly promised extra 350 m  for the NHS. His answer? Oh well . . . . .

And  "post-truth" nobody holds them and their cronies accountable. The sensation is not the demise of truth but the fact that we already have a word for it. Oh Brave New World.

Seriously, Dear World,

what is wrong with you? Have you gone stark staring mad?

After last year’s horrors, I was counting on the silly season being exactly that: the lazy, hazy days of summer, when the living is easy and the news is frivolous, with maybe a 'crime passionnel’ amongst the more hot-blooded classes to exercise the mind.

Instead we have more of the same, possibly even worse. Dear World, why are you turning at an ever faster pace, the news being outdated even before it’s been digested and events overtaking each other at breakneck speed? How did we allow this to happen? Sitting, as I do, in front of screens and pouring over newspapers doesn’t help. Neither does it help to mouth pious speeches: “Our thoughts and prayers are with you” being one of them, favoured by politicians and the general run of commentators at the scene and in memorial gatherings alike.

Battles in Syria, Iraq, the Ukraine, the refugee crisis, Islamist terror in France, The ascension of populist right wingers everywhere, with Donald Trump the most visible, Brexit in the UK, which one commentator explained as  a “howl of outrage" by those left behind in the global scramble for a place in the sun, whose votes were tricked out of them  by shameless lies and, most recently, the attempted military coup in Turkey with far from transparent origins. We hear of endless shootings in the US, which we hardly recoil from any longer, telling ourselves that  an obsession with readily available weapons will logically have only one outcome.

So much is happening, Dear World, how can we stop the carnage?

It may sound macabre, but we are so swamped with daily dollops of unbearably horrendous information that we are in danger of forgetting that 1000s have drowned in the Mediterranean  on their way to a “better life"and that the Italian coastguard has recently found a boat on the bottom of the Med with 675 corpses.They’re just the ones which have been discovered. How many more are there? How many more atrocities can France bear?
How many more men, women and children will have to leave everything they hold dear behind and run for their lives? Nearer home, what will Brexit mean for the poor in our own society?

hashtag “jesuissickofthishit"

Dear World, could we please stop now and start again?

A Warning

Since Friday morning six a.m. I have done little but follow the unfolding Brexit horror story; on the TV news, in political debates, newspapers, both digital and paper; I have opened every chime on my phone and checked news of developments on my tablet for hours every day. And when there were no new developments I read the old ones over again. And comments. And political blogs.

In a word, I’ve been obsessed. Still am. But I want out now. Enough, for heaven’s sake. You will understand if I tell you that I have done this in two languages other than English, namely from the EU viewpoint via German and French sources as well. As my French is pretty poor I earned myself several severe headaches into the bargain.

After months of relentless bombardment with ‘project fear’ on the one hand and a merciless diet of lies, some of them whoppers, rebutted and shown for the lies they were, but taken as gospel by people desperate to believe them, on the other, the populace has voted. Lots of them have since woken up saying "WTF have I done”, particularly now that the liars are back-pedalling like mad on their promises and the ‘project fear’ lot are suddenly not quite so certain that Armageddon, a nuclear holocaust, world war III, and economic collapse loom. It’s too late, in spite of a three-million-signatures-strong (so far) petition to reverse the process. We have ‘project farce’.

The funniest result is that the winning side now has absolutely no plan on how to implement vox pop’s wish. “There’s no hurry to execute withdrawal” they say. now that the repercussions are becoming apparent. I am allowing myself a smidgeon of Schadenfreude seeing that I am on the losing side.

The winners have been handed a poisoned chalice.  'Le Monde' said that it’s like a death sentence without an executioner. Nobody wants to carry out the sentence.

Now for the warning: many of my readers are US citizens. You are being offered a poisoned chalice yourself. Before you accept it make absolutely sure you know what you’re doing. And that you have a shrewd idea what the wrong decision will mean for you.

Good Luck to all of us.

Just when it felt safe to cheer up

and come out from behind that black cloud, they decided to have a divorce.

(image it’s nice that)

.... alle Menschen werden Brüder ....

?

not bloody likely!

Blogallimaufrey

Following news sources online is a mug’s game. There are too many sites which concentrate disproportionately on hyped and blown up bad news. Headlines scream at you, deliberately phrased in such a way that you are drawn in against your better judgement. Result: depression and feeling down-hearted. Yes, bad stuff happens all the time, but concentrating on it to the exclusion of good stuff doesn’t make it better.

Living in a phoney bubble of privilege and positivity is plain stupid, we must face reality. After all, we are part of the human race, living at this time,  constantly confronted with the awfulness of traumatic events. 

Desperate refugees pressed up against barbed wire, children with huge hungry eyes, mass shootings, politicians in the UK all but shredding each other over the EU referendum; and then there’s the surreal and well nigh unbelievable spectacle of Donald Trump. 

But there was better news too more recently:

What, really?

Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall? I can’t have been the only one whose face cracked into a huge sneery grin when the news came through. Finally, something to make me giggle. I loved the pictures of the happy couple, (particularly the close-ups), arm in arm, Jerry in flat shoes, so as not to tower over her shortish groom who's 84, and looks every day of it. 

And so Rupert plays his part. Shifting

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound.

However, it doesn’t do to make fun of Murdoch. At 84 his money bags can still cause our craven government to kowtow and let him have all the best programmes on the BBC for a song. Even for the man who can, and has, bought himself everything his mean and desiccated heart desires, the other man’s grass is always greener.

Not that you could mistake him for a sheep; a wolf in sheep’s clothing, more like.

Paul knocked on the back door today. The celandines are out in the hedges.Yes, it’s that time of year, March, the most exciting and provocative month in the garden, full of promise, with blizzards one minute and sun as warm as in May the next, with thunder and lightning, frivolous snow flurries, fierce storms pelting you with sleet and hail and soft breezes to make you throw off your hat and gloves. Yellow-gold March, with daffodil, coltsfoot, aconite, buttercup, dandelion and marsh marigold all vying for the attention of the earliest insects.  

Reporting Failure

I knew I would regret starting a week-long series of posts on positivity. It’s just not like me to go searching for 'reasons to be cheerful’, (as in Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ song), or ‘Looking on the Bright Side of Life’ (Monty Python and the ‘Life of Brian’) or ‘Counting my Blessings’ as the hymn tells me to do.

Don’t get me wrong, the attitude of looking at life through positive spectacles is to be welcomed; perhaps one needn’t go as far as Pollyanna and play the Glad Game whatever happens. Finding a pair of crutches in the Christmas stocking would make me cross enough to hit the giver over the head with them. At the other end of the spectrum, Ambrose Bierce in the Devil’s Dictionary writing off ‘positive’ as ‘mistaken at the top of one’s voice' is just plain unkind towards people whose philosophy tends to embrace certainty, tiresome though these people can be.

There have been plenty of good things happening this week, which ended in the first Sunday in Advent and with it the first pheasant dinner of the season: a live screening of Shakespeare’s ‘The Winter’s Tale’ at a local theatre, a pleasant meal at a cosy pub, some clothes shopping, and the poetry evening and beauty treatment already mentioned in the previous posts. Actually, it’s been an exceptionally good week. It would be hard to see it in anything other than a positive light. But these are not the cosy things bloggers praise when they write about appreciating humble, small joys. Heart-warming stuff, good stuff. For my week I needed leisure and a reasonably well stocked wallet. Bragging about it in detail would be bad taste. Of course, at times I am a smug git, but I’ll try not to show my true colours here.

I am profoundly grateful that I live in a peaceful country, that I am not one of the desperate people fleeing torture, bombs, destruction, hunger, disease and the horrors of civil war.  Not for me the undignified queueing up on Europe’s borders, begging to be admitted to shelter, food, work, and a life free from fear. Not for me the fate of being called a terrorist, a scrounger, a welfare tourist. Winter is coming and too few European nations seem to be aware that help is urgently needed to prevent chaos and save lives. Although in the UK we are spared pictures of the footsore and shivering crowds making their way across Europe from East to West - compassion fatigue sets in quite quickly here, the subject seems to have been swept out of sight recently - I have access to European TV channels and find myself utterly fascinated by and unable to look away from so much misery.

Being aware of my good fortune and counting my comfortable little blessings seems almost shameful in the face of suffering humanity. Therefore, rather than listing a week’s worth of pleasures, small or otherwise, I shall try to emulate those of you who find unexpected joy in the moment and, if I think about it in time, perhaps share it here.

Free Your Inner Child

at reasonable prices.

A colouring book, a packet of crayons and coloured pencils, a rubber and frequently licked forefinger, and a tongue busily poking out from between tiny teeth, what else was there to keep a small child occupied on a rainy seaside Bank Holiday Monday? Any boring place adults dragged you to became just about bearable if you hadn’t left behind your half finished colouring book, or, bliss, been given a new one as a bribe.

Nowadays even tiny tots are digital natives and carry their smart phone or tablet around with them. Parents don’t seem to find this at all outlandish. For all I know they have drawing apps on the gadgets and doodle childish scribbles on a screen rather than a nice rough paper book with creases and dog-eared corners. Not to mention chocolate ice cream stains.

It seems, however, that parents have rediscovered colouring books for themselves. At one point in the past few weeks colouring books for adults were rated first and second on Amazon’s bestseller lists. When I first saw mention of them I thought the ‘adult’ part meant just what it usually means, sexually explicit, a bit smutty, porno for retarded types who need to follow graphic instructions.

Far from it. I have since learned that these colouring book have romantic, if somewhat misleading, titles like ‘Enchanted Forest’ (hm, that could still give you the wrong impression?), 'Secret Garden' (golly!)  or 'Animal Kingdom’ (Roar!). Do you think the titles are deliberately chosen to tempt you?

Then there are the people who are keen to help you de-stress yourself, find yourself through art, realise what a busy mum you are and how a return to mindfulness can make you into a better person. There are adult colouring books to cater for all needs, therapy on the (not so) cheap for you and a nice little earner for all graphic artists who get on to the bandwagon in time.

I expect this craze will die a natural death once the market is saturated and consumers, beg pardon, recipients of therapy, realise that they had perhaps best leave childish pursuits to children. In the meantime, if colouring books light your candle, feel free to indulge. In small doses it’s probably harmless. Now where did I leave the coloured pencils I bought decades ago?

Sunday Sunday

“What’s libertarian?”  Beloved couldn’t give me a definite answer. We were both guessing.

It’s late Sunday morning and we are having breakfast. I must hurry because I want to watch a programme on German TV at 10 am our time, a weekly discussion on socio-political and cultural topics. At breakfast I invariably open my IPad to check the day’s news: on the BBC, The Guardian online and HuffPost. The three teenaged girls who appear to have run away from home to join ISIS make the headlines. They’re either still in Turkey or have crossed the border into Syria by now. Their families are distraught.

“Authorities Failed Girls”, screamed one headline. Instantly I get cross. Is no one responsible for themselves anymore? Or have fathers and mothers abdicated responsibility for their underage children and expect the authorities to take over?

So then I thought of Libertarianism . I looked it up on Google. I often look up definitions on Google that I used to look up in dictionaries. I don’t think I like it. I like the idea of the weak and helpless being safe in the arms of a benevolent society until such time as they can help themselves again.

Getting back to the three teenagers. Apparently there are dozens of young people from European countries following the call. We all know that ISIS revels in unspeakable acts of cruelty and barbarity. They say these young people are brainwashed into joining; what kind of mental deficiency allows them to overlook these acts? We all have this pat little phrase: ‘I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy’. I expect we even mean it some of the time. If these girls and others like them know what they’re doing they deserve everything they’re going to get.

The discussion programme on German TV was on the Police. Your friend and helper in times of trouble on the one hand and the abuser of power on the other. It was a lively programme, spoilt for me by the sole politician member who tried to monopolise it by dragging party politics into it. I shout at the screen: ‘yes, yes’ we all know that’, 'you are repeating yourself', 'that’s not the point’, but he paid no attention to me. Politicians never do. The moderator wagged his finger at him to shut him up. Do these people not know how annoying they are? Hides like a rhinoceros, politicians.

I was glad when it was time for Sunday lunch. We have a thing about Sunday lunch. It’s special. I cook meat and several vegetables, roast in winter, and there’s often a starter and aways a pudding. Wine at lunch is not a good idea because I must walk Millie in the afternoon but the weather was foul and I knew I wasn’t going to go far, so I treated myself to an extra glass. Beloved has sherry beforehand and wine with, but then he only has to fall into his chair afterwards, where he promptly nods off. I like our Sunday lunches, they are cosy and companionable, with a table cloth, good china and glassware and candles on dark days. We had roast pork, roast root vegetables and apple tart today.

The bottom field was awash. Sue was sloshing through with Jake, a gorgeous long-haired golden retriever, about 100 years old. Jake never misses plunging into the river, Sue was racing ahead, waving at me from a distance. Normally we stop and chat. Not today. Brian was throwing tennis balls for his two collies, Murphy and Badger - Brian likes Irish stout. I lifted my golfing umbrella slightly so I could see him. ‘Filthy weather’, ‘that wind goes right through you’, etc. "Go on, get on home. Have a nice cup of tea", Brian advised me. Nice cups of tea figure high on an Englishman’s list of priorities on a day like today.

Millie didn’t seem to mind having her walk curtailed. Poor girl has to go in for yet another operation next Thursday. A growth on her belly, not a fat lump this time. I’m being extra nice to her, feeding her lots of biscuits. If she gets too fat she can’t have an operation, so I’d better watch it.

J.K. Rowling has written a couple of thrillers. I finished one of them lying on the sofa, duties done for the day. I never read her Harry Potter books, nor ‘A Casual Vacancy’, her first book for adults. The latter has been turned into a TV series; I saw the first episode, didn’t like it, and gave up on it. The thrillers aren’t great either but, what the heck, I’ll try anything once.

Which brings me to supper, very light because of the large lunch, eaten in front of another German TV programme, a cop show. English cop shows are cosy and bloodless and usually portray genteel murderers in picturesque villages, solved by bumbling policemen with a side kick who makes inane remarks. German cop shows are nastier, grittier, full of big city realism and the kind of murderer you want caught, hanged, drawn and quartered. I know which one I prefer. The English variety is soporific, asks nothing except suspension of disbelief, an ability to overlook wooden dialogue and looks pretty. What more could you ask on a wet evening in February.

There you have it, Sunday chez Friko. It might make a fitting punishment for my worst enemy, being bored to tears should describe it adequately.

Crumbs, or (In)consequential Trifles (1)

What do you want first, good news or bad news?

Some statements/headlines in the press or online are so stupid, outlandish, silly, ridiculous, horrifying, that they deserve no comment at all. Or no more than a sharp snort, a fruity snicker or a disgusted harrumph.

British confirmed as world’s sexiest accent. Guardian online.  (Since when is ‘British' a language?)

Nine is a perfectly good age for girls to consider marriage. Islamic State All-Female Militia Manifesto.

Female martyrs to the cause are rewarded with the freedom to choose their favourite husband and to stay with him for all eternity.  Ditto. (Lucky ladies.)

Finland is to remove cursive writing from its education programme and replace it
with lessons in keyboard typing. IceNews (What next, no maths, just calculators?)


But then I came across this:

German teen’s simple anti-bullying message goes viral

No all-singing-all-dancing-fancy-tech-firewoks, just bits of paper with handwritten lines held up, coming from the heart.

People! Nobody is worth less than anyone else just because he or she:

Has a handicap /
May not have much money /
May not be very smart /
May not have the best figure /
Is gay, lesbian or bisexual /
Has a different skin color /
Has a different religion /
Comes from a different country/

Victims of bullying often feel lonesome and left alone. They hurt their bodies because they think they are different. They have thoughts about suicide!

How would – you – feel about that?

Only TOGETHER can we CHANGE things! =)

The boy meant to address his peer group but his message goes for all of us. Just because somebody is different doesn’t make them a justified target for ridicule, hatred, bullying.  Will we ever learn this simple truth?

Vox Populi

Kelly stopped vacuuming and poked her head through the living room door on her way to doing the stairs.

“So, what about this Ebola then.”

"It’s scary.”

“Yeah, it is. Very. Have you heard? They’re looking for a whole planeload of people. One of them nurses went on a plane to a party, a wedding or something, and she was already sick. Had a fever, which is when you’re most contagious.”

“Really? No I hadn’t heard.”

“They’re saying it was a real cock-up, the hospital not noticing and letting her go when she was already sick. It could be all over the place by now."

“Hm, that sounds extremely careless. And dangerous."

“It’s criminal. I’m going to start stockpiling. I don’t want to get it.”

She laughed, but I could tell she was at least half serious. She patted the wooden cupboard just inside the door with the flat of her hand for luck.

“I don’t want to get it,” still laughing nervously and patting the cupboard again, “not me and my kids anyway. Everyone else will have to look after theirselves. It could be like the pest again. They say it could have been Ebola that time when all them people died of the black pest and that it could spread like that again. It was all over the news.”

Kelly was by no means finished. Breathlessly, she continued. "It always happens when there’s too many people. Diseases and wars, I mean. And what they’re really worried about is that the virus mutates and becomes airborne. I’m getting prepared, at least with getting a few things in stock. You never know.”

No, you never know.

I don’t know Kelly’s source of information but it must be popular mass media, what else could it be. She withdrew her head and turned her attention back to the vacuum cleaner. Kelly is by no means a callous, uncaring person with an eye to the main chance. She is a professional carer (as well as a cleaner for a few select clients)  and the way she speaks about her charges gives me the impression that she genuinely cares about the aged and frail. There are many around like Kelly in the West, ordinary, decent, hard working people who worry about many things; could this be the beginning of world wide panic? I hope not. I hope that those 'who know', in other words ‘They’, know what they’re doing. Does that sound at all likely to you? After all, had they woken up sooner to the disaster unfolding in West Africa, the outbreak might still have been containable. But that was West Africa, a long way away from our hygienically safe world.

o-o-o

PS:  Her morning’s job done and making ready to leave, Kelly shouted up the stairs: “See you next week. Unless I’ve got Ebola by then. Byyyyeeee!"

By Way of a Diary Entry

I need a wife. Even a husband would do.

I am old. Like the castle. And like the castle I just want to sit and look pretty. I want to brandish my pension book and leave big decisions to others, younger than me. I want to choose what I do, not have a course of action forced on me.   Enjoyable things. I don’t want to learn new tricks or do jobs which are meant for young people. Or men. Yes, men. Nothing of the feminist about me today.

Yesterday I was hanging out of the velux on the sloping roof trying to clear the channels either side of the window from moss and debris. There’s a new seepage stain in the cupboard in the roof space, which means rainwater gets in somewhere. Three different sets of workmen have looked at the roof, scratched their heads,  rearranged their boys’ bits, fiddled with tiles and sheets of some metal and gone away, leaving a big bill behind. One of these days that window will be the death of me.

I’ve been going into CBT -  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy -  on the internet this morning. There’s this phobia I have about driving up a particular steep lane in Valley’s End. About five years ago I lost control of the car on this lane, rolled backwards into a gate, demolished the gate and wrote off the car; nobody else was involved and nobody got hurt. Since then I have avoided this lane. Unfortunately that makes coming into Valley’s End from the Welsh side a bit of a bummer; either I have to go the long way round, two to three miles extra, or persuade Beloved to do that bit which actually takes no more than five minutes. Beloved no longer has a driving licence because of his poor eyesight.  Making him drive could cause problems with the law. So you see, one way and another it would be good if I could get over this phobia.

I told my doctor and he advised CBT. Really and truly, I would prefer to sidestep the whole issue, ostrich-like (do ostriches really stick their heads into the sand? I must find out); but Knighton is where the poetry group meets and my face-girl has her treatment room. Which do I choose? Give them up or endure the inevitable panic attacks?

A competent wife or husband would take this decision off me. They’d only need to be part-time, of course. The law also frowns on bigamists.


I learned on the website of MIND - for better mental health that CBT can be an effective therapy for a number of problems:

anger management
anxiety and panic attacks *
chronic fatigue syndrome
chronic pain
depression *
drug or alcohol problems
eating problems *
general health problems
habits, such as facial tics
mood swings *
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) *
phobias *
post-traumatic stress disorder
sexual and relationship problems
sleep problems *

The list awards me seven brownie points, that is if chocolate cravings and a mild need to arrange pills, chocolate buttons, newspapers, spoons and socks in orderly matching pairs, strictly aligned according to length, count.

What happened to those wonderful days when the aged were shoved into the inglenook, or in particularly drastic cases, pushed into a cupboard, fed when someone remembered and otherwise forgotten and left to get on with drooling and gnashing their toothless gums. They never had to make a decision.  Actually, that sounds remarkably like some modern nursing homes, except there you may have the added excitement of being called names and given a slap when the carers can’t force your arthritic arms and legs into your garments quickly enough. 

Not so much Wordless (Wednesday)

as speechless.

This is a picture of the clock tower in the little Welsh market town of Knighton, just over the border from Valley’s End.

Speechless might not be a suitable word either, for the good burghers of Knighton have had plenty to say since it’s become known that a new inhabitant of the peaceful town has made an official complaint about the clock, under noise nuisance regulations.  Every fifteen minutes, day and night, there’s a ding, and a dong, and a ding dong, just like it’s been for 142 years. “It may be an irritating clock”, the townsfolk say, “but it’s our irritating clock.  Besides, you soon stop hearing it going on about its lawful business; and we’d all miss it if it weren’t there any more. It’s part of our heritage.”

God help those who interfere with tradition in a sleepy, openly old-fashioned, slightly batty Welsh market town, which has a fair sprinkling of ex hippies, poetry and violin and book group lovers and a flourishing young farmer’s drama society.

The new inhabitant is a writer from Ireland. She has bought a large house in the square and opened a B&B for nervous writers who need a retreat to concentrate on their muse and whose delicate sensibilities suffer from the noise a clock makes.  Did it seriously not occur to her, that the chiming clock tower, that is barely 20 yards from her window, might be a slight drawback? It’s not as though she can’t have noticed it, what with the thing going off every 15 minutes, night and day. And walking up and down the high street to the ‘narrows’ , that warren of small streets and higgledy-piggledy houses on the border of which the writer’s house stands, you have to step sideways not to hit the tower. It’s large, it’s ugly, it’s unmissable, a typical Victorian monstrosity.

I went to see Helen in Knighton for a facial treatment this morning and this story was the first she told me. “It’s gone viral,” she said. It’s true, I’ve since googled ‘Knighton Clocktower’ and it’s all over the media. One thing’s for sure, whether the lady silences the clock or not, and I don’t believe she will, the Welsh are nothing if not bloody-minded, she’ll have had some very good publicity.

November Blues

November, this much maligned and most melancholy of months, is over. The hole was deep and dark and nary a glimmer of light visible on the few occasions when I strained to lift my head. I kept away from people, both in the real world and here; poor Beloved had to bear the brunt of the antisocial, miserable, self-pitying, gloomy me.

And please, don’t anybody come with a cheery “Be Positive” mantra.

For the person who is physically and mentally on their knees it is the most counter-productive, useless bit of advice anybody could give.

Strangely enough, it was a TV programme on my German home channel which gave me a leg-up this time. A discussion about death and dying, the five participants had either experienced life-threatening accidents and illnesses, or were involved professionally in the hospice movement. One man who particularly impressed me was the former Michelin Chef Ruprecht Schmidt, who gave up a career in top restaurants to cook for the ‘guests’ spending their final weeks of life in the Hamburg Hospice Hamburg Leuchtfeuer, giving each what they most wanted to eat, cooking the dishes ‘as mother did’. It seems that simple fare is what most people want at the end of their lives. Schmidt’s motto is “Wer isst, lebt noch” (you are alive while you can eat). Asked what made him decide to leave the stressful and competitive world of haute cuisine, he said : "It no longer gave me pleasure; I wanted to do something important and meaningful”.

Normal service will/will not be resumed tomorrow.

the table

The kitchen was always the centre of the house, in fact, we had what was called a living kitchen then, one large room with a table and chairs in the middle, a cast iron range to one side and a dresser to the other. If the kitchen was the centre, the table was the heart of our home. We had our meals at it, father read the paper there and I did my homework. Any family discussions were held here, fists banging the table for emphasis when the talk became heated. The few visitors we had were invited to take a seat, and uncles and aunts had their own regular places. I took my books here, colouring books to start, later picture books, then reading books. In the evenings mum and dad and I played cards or board games, likeBlack Peter (Schwarzer Peter)and Mensch Aergere Dich Nicht.

Let’s Stop Minding Our Own Business

when it comes to suspected child abuse.

Another week, another horror story about a child somewhere, in a perfectly ordinary street, in a house just down the road or in the next village, the next town, being ill treated, beaten, starved to death. We hear of it when the child is found dead, when dramatic headlines make us shudder, when the parents or childminders end up in court, justifying their miserable existence. And we stare at the angelic faces of toddlers smiling at us from the TV screen and ask ourselves how it is possible that somebody has slammed their fist into that innocent face.

How is it possible that nobody noticed before it was too late? I am not talking about professionals, the child protection services, police, social workers et al. Each time it happens they trot out the same excuses and explanations: too many cases, pressure of work, lack of funding, manipulative and sly parents pulling the wool over their eyes, lack of co-ordinated working methods, working under impossible conditions.

Be that as it may, we have to accept that the professionals do their best, although their best is often just not good enough. And always, after each new inquiry into another catastrophe: “LESSONS MUST BE LEARNED” is the mantra everyone is agreed upon.

What I want to know is: where are the neighbours, the Nosy Parker women down the road? the curtain twitchers? the women who used to make it their business to know what goes on in the block of flats? the terraced road? Everybody's  auntie Ada, who knew the name of every kid, always had a nosy question, a dusty sweet, or a quick clip round the earhole if you’d done something naughty or dangerous. You ran from her mad cackle, but you also ran to her if you were in trouble.

Where is that woman now?

Keeping Herself To Herself, Minding Her Own Business, like all the others of her ilk? 

I want them back, one in every street, in  every block of flats. They’d know what goes on behind closed doors. They’d hear the screams of helpless children, they’d see the bruises and thin little bodies.  We’d curse them for busy-bodying, we’d ridicule them for interfering in matters that don’t concern them. Instead, we should praise their vigilance and willingness to help when needed. If they saved just one of these little mites from terror and abuse, I’d gladly put up with them.

Come on, auntie Ada, do your stuff. You know you want to.