Jupiter

Early. Very early.  The glorious, shining speck of light against the cold blackness of the night sky is the first thing I see as I raise the bedroom blind.  Jupiter slowly descending towards the western horizon.  Uplifting and encouraging? Yes definitely. Illogical reaction? No.

Gaudete

Hunkering down. The rain slams against the window as I type this and the strength of the wind is increasing.  A foretaste of the series of storms heading this way from the Atlantic later today.  It's a wild world out there.

A different Christmas but not a downbeat one - a lot of expectations have been shed this year thank heavens.  A warm house, good food, enough money not be too worried about it, at least not all the time. An invitation from a neighbour. A DVD box set to watch.   Best of all in the last few days there's been renewed contact with my oldest friend which seems to have put to rest the nasty falling-out we had in June.  A load off the mind and heart.



Can't get enough of this carol.  Gorgeous a capella singing in Latin by Steeleye Span.  A reminder of non-commercial celebrations down the centuries.

Whatever you are doing (or not), may the coming days be happy and peaceful ones. Merry  Christmas.

Solstice

Darkness everywhere but as from today the light will return. Slowly, imperceptibly, inexorably. 

 

I love the Winter Solstice and I wish you a hopeful one.

Twelfth House

In [the 12th House] the progressing Moon gives a person the opportunity to examine his life from a perspective broader than that of self-gain and self-interest. If a person will not take this opportunity then he will be forced to acknowledge that there are other ways of looking at the situations in which he has been involved, even if this takes imprisonment, hospitalisation or the loss of loved ones. During this period of his life a person frequently feels lost and lonely but nonetheless, it exists as an opportunity for him to rethink his life and use his future more wisely than he has used his time up to that point. That opportunity will be at its most obvious and most pressing as the Moon reaches the closing degrees of the 12th House - just before a new twenty-eight year cycle begins.

The DK Foundation
 http://www.dkfoundation.co.uk/dkfoundation/BookTransitsBook12.htm

Yup, that's me right now.  Looking back over the past months and the state of my life and relationships is sobering, as indeed it has been all the time I've been ill.   Horribly tempting to see myself as a victim.  I have to ask am I really, and if so why.  Why does the behaviour of others trigger the old childhood feelings - not good enough, not worth making the effort for, feelings that have been a leitmotif throughout my life.  You are so strong and independent people say to me.  And I am.  But I'm also lonely much of the time and that's very hard to admit.

What this period of ill health and consequent isolation has done is give me the space and time to deal with some of this.   I've not only let go of junk food and clutter; some  family relationships and friendships have faded away as well. Illness has changed the dynamics.  All but two I accept as having ended naturally, but the remaining two I grieve and ache for.  Disappointment and disillusion are hard.

The isolation has been needed.  Awful but needed.  I've needed to understand how strong I am as well as how weak. Sometimes - not so often now thankfully - the physical pain and discomfort have been so excruciatingly bad I wouldn't have been able to cope with anyone around  me,  also the loneliness has provided the framework, the space and time to think and dream and hope, to take care of my diet and health without pressure from others.  There is solid satisfaction in cleaning up my act. (Mustn't forget either to thank the two therapists, the cranial osteopath and the naturopath, who in different ways continue to haul me out of the pit).

As I said, sobering.  But given where I was in early 2009, almost certainly necessary.   And going into 2014 I'm not unhopeful that with honesty and vulnerability, as well as strength and independence, things may change. Even though I'm sixty-four.  My dreams are more mundane and realistic now but that's just fine. 

December morning

The brittle, dying leaves and dry flower heads on the buddleia rustle in the cold wind.   A robin sings as though it were already spring. 

Unexpected beauty

Broken bracelet. Now a clutch of birds eggs in a china nest.

Fuzzy

So it's been grey and stormy (though we inland-dwellers have had it easy compared with those on the coast, many of whom have been flooded out) but today is peaceful and, intermittently, sunny.  In the ongoing decluttering campaign this morning I've thrown out a box of wooden toothpicks and some unusable wrapping paper and ribbon, and have put a pair of salad servers and a random wooden fork in the bag for the charity shop.  Ridiculously satisfying to be doing this; gradually remedying some of the chaos of the past five years when stuff piled up simply because I didn't have the focus or energy to decide what to do with it.   Energy levels are still pretty low and probably will be for months more but in a way this is good; stops any risk of overreaching.   I'm laying the physical foundations for the rest of my life, it's my last chance to do this and the process can't be rushed.  Reconstruction takes time.

Seem to be losing my knack with a camera as well.  Perhaps my hand shakes more than it did.  Fuzzy is the word for most of my recent photographic attempts, but I'm fond of these.

It's Christmas Cactus season.

Silver Birch

It's been a while since I posted but I'm still here.  The recovery road has been rough of late and flare-ups of any kind dry up my blogging juices, but dammit I don't want to stop.  So I'm going to keep the bar low.  A few lines will do.

Let me tell you about this morning's gale.  A wild one.  The last few leaves from the silver birch danced and and soared in front of the kitchen window like so many yellow butterflies.  The tree herself swayed and shuddered, tossing her branches as a woman might her long hair.

Circles

Spider

I was tidying up in the kitchen yesterday afternoon when a black spider appeared close to my right eye.  I tried to brush it away and realised it wasn't a spider at all.  It was a large black floater dominating my field of vision.  It sank out of sight and a few minutes later came back again with a couple of small friends.   Panic.  But since the PVD diagnosis for the left eye a few months ago, I knew what to do, called a taxi and headed for the Eye Casualty clinic at the local hospital.

Five people ahead of me but I didn't mind. Just being there was a comfort. I would be dealt with. Leafed compulsively through the one magazine on the waiting room table. A local community newsletter about Hay on Wye.  I read through the features, returned to the beginning and started scrutinising the small ads in desperation. The spider came and went.   The other five: an elderly man and his male friend; two women (I couldn't make out which one was the patient) and a young lad with a cold chatted and/or stared at the ceiling.

Called into the triage section.  A motherly and reassuring nurse took the relevant details and put dilation drops into both eyes.  A different waiting room.   They'd made an effort with the decor - prints of cheerful impressionist paintings, an Ansel Adams photograph.  More magazines.  A wider selection here: She, Good Housekeeping, Country Living,  and even Hello (I know, I know, when you're in a hospital waiting room you'll read anything. It occurred to me that I only recognised about half the celebrities featured).   I was contemplating tackling a caravanning periodical when my name was called.

It was obvious Dr Patel knew what she was doing. She sat opposite me at the ophthalmology machine.  Chin on the machine, a succession of dazzling bright lights, white and blue, in the eyes.  Look upwards to the right.  Downwards to the left. Focus on my right ear.  Keep your eyes wide open.  I know it's hard.  She handed me a tissue.

So it's just PVD again.   Floaters rather than flashes this time but the same thing.  Grateful to have been seen.  Grateful to be reassured.  Still have to watch out for the signs of a possible retinal detachment but I feel like an old hand at this game now.

On the way home I debated why I hadn't asked my neighbour to accompany me. At the hospital  I had alternated between a wistful melancholy that I had no-one metaphorically to hold my hand but at the same time I was relieved at not having to worry about anyone else's welfare - especially with the long wait.  My neighbour is lovely but I don't know her well enough to feel comfortable in this kind of situation. It seems that when the chips are down I rely on myself. This is the way life is now and I'm not sure I am capable of changing it.  Besides, I've been robbed of my independence these past few years and it felt good to get a little of it back.

The spider is still with me this morning.  Maybe as time goes by I'll start to get fond of him.

Earth

The gardener, Brian, came yesterday afternoon; he's been on holiday for nearly a month so the garden needed his ministrations.  This morning - very early - I bag up the rubbish for the weekly collection. Overcast sky.  It has rained overnight, moisture still hangs heavily in the air, and a snail  makes its slimey way up the wall. The scent of the newly turned soil and cut grass is wonderful.  Half a dozen fuchsia flowers provide a splash of flashy, showgirl colour in an otherwise muted and damp space.   I always try and walk barefoot on the grass as I read somewhere that is good for the health -  and even if it isn't I love it, particularly in wet weather.

Brian went to the States for his holiday.  We compare notes on the Grand Canyon and both agree that we needed far longer than the allotted single day in a packed itinerary.  I still dream of  making it back there one day to walk some of the lesser-known trails - around the North Rim for example.

I was at the canyon in early November 2000.  The day after our arrival in America the Presidential Election took place. We left for home a week and a bit later, still not knowing who the next President would be.  The rest, as they say, is history.  History that is still playing itself out.

September

"September is different from all other months.  It is more magical  ..... For days the weather has been the same. One wakes to see the trees outside bathed in green-gold light.  It's fresh - not cold. It's clear. The sky is a light pure blue.

 .... Midday - with long shadows.  Hot and still.  And yet there's always that taste of a berry rather than a scent of a flower in the air. "

Katherine Mansfield
Journal, September 1921

Daybreak

Very early morning, pre-dawn, in my dressing gown I carry the filled charity shop bag to the front lawn for collection.   A warm wind from the west, soft as a caress, with the faintest scent of flowers and pine.  High above the waning crescent moon says her farewells to the current lunar cycle.

Most of the bag is filled with old books.  I have a schizophrenic relationship with books these days because as fast as the old ones are given away new ones are being ordered; second hand all, so bankruptcy isn't too much of a threat.  In my defence, reading still has to be the primary occupation.   I've just ordered a copy of Katherine Mansfield's Letters and Journal - my previous one fell apart a few years ago I re-read it so much.  Also I'm currently addicted to Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder detective novels.  Very dark but riveting, particularly if you know New York.  At some point I'm going to have to get a Kindle.

****

A couple more butterfly photos. The underside of the Small Tortoiseshell's wings is less showy than the upper surface but equally beautiful.

 

Butterflies

Snippets

A straggly buddleia has pushed its way through the asphalt of the residents' car park adjoining my garden, right next to the fence.  Apparently, according to a rather fascinating TV programme on weeds I caught the other week, it is categorised as an invasive species in the UK and is spreading like wildfire, often on the most unpromising terrain.  Wikipedia further enlightens me that in the US states of Oregon and Washington buddleia is considered a noxious weed, something like Japanese Knotweed.  But I will resist the surreal temptation to have at it with a flamethrower and a machete a la The Day of the Triffids; the butterflies love it and that's reason enough to leave well alone.

****


More oomph and confidence these past weeks though by evening energy levels are flat. But then I've always been a lark rather than an owl. Pleased that I'm managing to tolerate the full daily dose of probiotics after months of painstakingly building up the dosage.  Slowly does it - each time I've tried to increase the amount too quickly the result has been horrendous, they're powerful little blighters are probiotics. The naturopath wants to put me onto some cutting-edge antifungal magic potion over the autumn so maybe this improvement will convince him it's time.

From childhood until very recently I've eaten badly.  Not all the time, but periodic compulsive - and I do mean compulsive - junk food eating binges were the main opt-out when the anxiety and stress were overwhelming.   The digestive system took the punishment seemingly without complaint.  Not any longer. Some of it is probably genetic; my father had similar digestive issues.

Now the gut has finally said Enough. It's started throwing temper tantrums.  And it's telling me loud and clear how much it's suffered.  So I don't feel self-pity at the pain and weakness and headaches when they hit.  Natural justice.  High time for me to make reparations and look after the digestive system better in the future, which I'm happy to do.  Maybe in time I'll even learn to love it .....


 ****

The taxi driver was middle aged and wiry with a tattoo on his left forearm and had his car radio tuned to Classic FM.  A Mozart symphony welcomed me in.   Nice, I said.  This kind of music keeps me sane, he replied. A pause.  Do you mind if I put a CD on?  You'll love this, it sends shivers down my spine each time I hear it.   He pressed a few buttons and turned up the volume.

As we waited at the traffic lights in the 4 x 4, Noah Stewart's voice enveloped us. Schubert's Ave Maria.  Words would have been out of place. In the blustery afternoon sunshine we moved on when the lights changed, crossed the river and headed for home.

Smell

The smell of cooking garlic floats in through the open window from a neighbour's kitchen.  For an instant I'm back in the 1980s in Paris outside a restaurant on a humid summer's evening.  Never mind the madeleines, it's smell not taste that does it for me.

I read once that smell is the most evocative of the senses, that it accesses the greatest amount of memory stored in the computer that is the brain.  I believe it.  Woodsmoke, oh yes especially woodsmoke. An earlier French memory from my au pair days in 1968 of the host family's chateau (they had aristocratic forebears).    Situated near Troyes, seventeenth century or earlier, there were a multitude of  beautiful but shabby and dilapidated high-ceilinged rooms and, above all, massive fireplaces where logs from the estate had burned for several centuries. The smell of woodsmoke had over time permeated the walls and it hung in the air, even in high summer. I can't describe the intensity of that smell, not that it was unpleasant, rather it was subtly sensual and thus almost frightening to my awkward and dislocated eighteen-year old self.

And also:  Roasting coffee beans. Lilac. Horses. Autumn mornings. New books.  Creosote.  Brief but oh-so-detailed scenes from the past - places, seasons, houses, people - attach themselves to each one.

Hoping for more. Counting on more. Smells and memories.

Movement

Sunshine and brief showers today with a warm southerly wind  that carries along with it these cloud formations that change with the passing second. This is the sort of summer weather I like. 
 
The letting go continues and a lady called Lin is coming to pick up the cat basket tomorrow afternoon. I've tried to live a well-adjusted life.  I mean love and stability and companionship and job and belonging.   Money only as a means to an end. Nothing has worked - and the higgledy piggledy pile of books and possessions that I'm sorting through demonstrate this.   Massage books (can't do massage any more, nor do I want to). How To books. Crafts that were abandoned.  Co-dependency books. Journals.  Detritus all. Being ill has given me the space to understand to that indeed nothing could have worked. Not with me being the way I was and everything and everyone else around me being the way they were.  The fit was never there.

Stripped to the core. Feeling like a newborn at 64 years old. It's a relief to be this age and not to worry about so much that used to distress me. Each thing I surrender - and I do so willingly and with relief - stokes the fire that moves me forward. 

Shopping Trolley

So I signed up with Freecycle yesterday and decided to submit the 4-wheeled shopping trolley as a test run on the list of Items Offered.  A remnant of my London life, when most weekends I would trundle along with it to Sainsbury's in Balham, it's been cluttering up my porch since I moved in here. Online shopping rules these days chez moi.

Two email replies offering the trolley a home.  Both sound nice, sane, non-psychopathic. I pick the first one and he says he will collect this morning.  I'm in the front garden when he pulls up in the car with the family, a wife and two young girls.  He levers himself slowly out of the driver's seat.  Stocky, fifty-ish, a local accent, he walks with difficulty, using a cane.  He's been very ill he tells me and the doctor has told him to begin taking gentle exercise.  He reckons walking to the local shops would be a good start but he can't carry anything.  The trolley is just what he needs.

I hand it over. I've spent the rest of the day feeling enormously gratified.  Liberated even.  Next on the list, the cat basket.

Wheels

Distinctly emotional watching the final stage of the Tour de France. France TV does a fabulous job with their earthbound and helicopter shots and the late evening sunlight set the scene beautifully for the ride into Paris yesterday. Just a quick glimpse of the suburbs that I knew so well sets me off - Meudon-la-Foret, Issy les Moulineaux, Porte de Sevres. The  Champs Elysees and the quais de la Seine formed part of my walk to and from work at one time. Nostalgia and beauty and sadness and regret all mixed; this city pulls at my heartstrings like no other. One day I'll go back, take my time and lay a few ghosts.

Ironically yesterday I decided to put my bike on Freecycle.  In the future I simply can't take the risk of an accident.  Transport henceforth will be two legs or four wheels.  If specific cycling exercise is needed I'll go the gym.  Can't crash an exercise bike.

Wait

A still, shimmering afternoon. Sunlight, so bright, so strong, dazzles and drives one into the shade.  Early mornings and evenings are best in this heat, though - intermittently - there is the softest breath of a breeze. The houses around the green and their occupants seem to doze peacefully.

The naturopath says that my system is getting more robust with each visit but energy levels are down from when I last saw him two months ago. Unsurprised by the latter.  Since May there have been mice in the bedroom wall, a posterior vitreous detachment and a nasty fall-out with a close friend (which please God will be resolved - though I don't know how).   Stress and fatigue buttons have been well and truly pushed.  But I persevere with the anti-yeast diet and he will be starting me on a new treatment at the next appoinment - or at least soon.  Not ready yet. We wait. Not easy for someone who is naturally on the hyper side. 

So. High summer. A time apparently to hold still.  To let things be as they are. 

And today this story makes me happy for all sorts of reasons. My father had mild dementia in the last year or so of his life.

Summer Garden

Early morning. Sunshine. Hot but not too hot. Heavy, scented air. In that moment, perfection.

Flashing

You see, I don't want to come on here and just tell you about my ailments, which  I've been doing a lot of recently.  So I'll tell you about the Posterior Vitreous Detachment in my left eye diagnosed by the local optometrist. It doesn't count because it's not an ailment.   The helpful and reassuring piece on the RNIB website, says so.  No, it is a natural change that occurs in the eye in many people as they get older and the symptoms are floaters and -  the thing that is really stressing me out -  rapid light flashes on the periphery of the eye concerned, particularly in the dark and dimly lit conditions.  Apparently these symptoms can last from a few weeks to a year, with most cases settling down and resolving at around six months.  So it's a fairly long haul.  Just to up the anxiety, in the first two or three months you are more at risk from a retinal detachment, though this is fairly rare, but if the symptoms change or worsen I have to get to A&E pronto. My friendly neighbour has volunteered to ferry me there if necessary, day or night she says.  I'm grateful.

Six weeks in now, and I'm staying in well-lit places, including sleeping with the bedside light on because I can't cope with the firework display in my left eye when I awaken in the dark.

Why had I never heard of this?

****

The theme that resonates more and more is : simplify.  Things you no longer need - give away what you can, sell anything you can sell.  When I'm fit enough the plan is to downsize and move to a smaller property closer to the centre of town which requires less maintenance. Walk to the shops, to the library, to see friends. I no longer want to fritter away nervous energy on stuff that drains me needlessly.  Time and health are increasingly precious, dear God they are.

  Pretty pink.  The new gardener, Brian, nice man, gave me some cuttings. 

Shetland

I've never visited them nor have I given the Shetland Islands too much thought  until recently, but a month or so ago I started reading Ann Cleeves' Shetland detective stories.   Gripping they are too.  Elegant writing, clever plots, a sympathetic detective and, above all, vivid descriptions of the British Isles' most northerly islands. ( I've long realised I read detective stories as much for the descriptions of the land and cityscapes as for the plot).

As I've worked my way through the series Ms Cleeves and the Sheltland Islands have reeled me in. I started scanning the internet for images, plotting routes, studying maps. Even though I'm in no state to walk any distance and I take taxis to go to where I need to go, I'm planning hikes across the rocky, treeless moors under the wide skies where the only sounds are the wind, the waves and the sea birds.  Where Bergen is closer than Edinburgh and the names of the little towns and settlements come from Old Norse.  Wildness and wilderness attracts me, it always has.  So I'm smitten. It's like falling in love again at an age where you should know better. 

By happy coincidence I caught a TV programme the other night on the landscape artist and printmaker, Norman Ackroyd,.  The son of a Yorkshire butcher, apart from being stunningly talented he came across as a humble, down to earth man who produces haunting, powerful yet delicate etchings and aquatints of the remote and wild places of the British landscape.  He is particularly captivated by the Scottish islands, including the Shetlands and I in turn was moved and excited by his work.  A new discovery. 
 





More prints and biographical notes on Norman Ackroyd's website here.    Take a look.

 ****

 I've told myself of late that travel no longer holds the same appeal, that I'm jaded and weak and old, that I want to stay home. I may perhaps be pickier now, but there are  moors, cliffs, rocks and islands, that still call to me and to my spirit.  I can still fall in love.

Ending

The first signs of decay show that this season's work is almost complete. Still so beautiful though in the early morning sunlight.

Festina Lente

It's part of testing my limits and strength I suppose.  I had a wobble this morning - did too much, attempted to lift something just a little bit heavier than I can manage.  I didn't actually lift it but the slight bending and even the partial effort caused a back muscle to twinge.  I think I'm OK but I've scared myself.

When I get caught up in a task or project something akin to obsession - enthusiasm's shadow - can take over and common sense is all too easily cast aside.   I can't afford to let this happen in the future, it's how I first  injured my lower back four years ago.  Vigilance has to be the watchword when it comes to health, and to be truthful I'm not sure I know how to change, how not to be caught out again.

And I so want to have my life back.  I'm doing more, trying new things, making plans to venture out of the house.  All good but it would be terrible to let obsession and impatience ruin it.  For now at any rate, caution trumps everything else.

Now to let the panic subside.  Wait.  Think.  Breathe.  I need my guardian angel to materialise at moments like the one this morning, tap me on the shoulder and remind me.  Festina lente.  

Memory

 

I find myself thinking about childhood and those iconic bottles and packages that are printed on the memory, probably until the day I die.   It was just after the war and rationing was still in force and I was one of the first generation of National Health babies.

So this concentrated National Health orange juice, recently issued to families with young children, would have been ground-breaking.  Likewise the thick, viscous cod liver oil which my mother was convinced I would refuse but which - perversely - I used to love.  The morning ritual was this: as soon as I was old enough I would clamber up to stand on one of  the wooden kitchen chairs while my mother measured out a spoonful of the stuff.  I was now at her level, she didn't have to bend down and the oil didn't get spilled.   A special spoon.  Mouth open and in it went.

Then I remember the green gingham dress with parallel ruffles on the bodice.  The old wireless which we hung onto for years afterwards with all those names on the dial (Luxembourg, Cork, Hilversum. Moscow). Listen With Mother.  The flowering cherry just the other side of the back fence, bordering the gravel pit. One day in spring, maybe another sun-filled May day like today, the sight of the cloud of pink blossom against the bluest of blue skies is my first recollection of being awed by beauty.  I think my heart turned over.  

We moved from this house when I was five years old.  

Decluttering

A good day.  More energy.  Major decluttering in the kitchen, the logic being while I'm sorting out my digestive system in the spirit of fengshui why not spring clean the surroundings as well and maybe help things along. Deeply embarrassing to discover so many food items in the cupboards that were way past their sell-by dates. I mean two or three years. Mainly stuff in tins and packets.  So they go on the compost or into the bin. I hate throwing food out but it's got to be done and the streamlined shelves and cupboards are now a joy to behold.

****

I've recently discovered Ann Cleeves and her northern detective stories and I'm hooked.  Brain fog means that of late crime fiction is pretty much all I can focus on, and she is very good. 

****

The silver birch sways languidly in the fresh north-west breeze and the evening sun warms the brickwork. The horse chestnut is clothed in a pale green mist, not yet leaves but no longer buds. Dandelions, daisies and forget-me-nots have sprung up on the lawn. I'm happy to see them all, even the dandelions.  No, especially the dandelions - there's something so cussed and undaunted and cheerful about them, as if they know they're not always welcome and they don't care.

Like I said, a good day. It finally feels like spring.

Power

Spring sunlight and long shadows.

Then an urgent swish of large wings cutting through the peaceful garden sounds.  Loud and rhythmic honking.  Two swans, necks extended, skim over the roof of the house like daredevil pilots and continue their straight line west towards the river.   More than a little disturbing, all that power, in the midst of such a golden afternoon. 

Alive

I sally forth by taxi to the office of the notary public for the first of the twice-yearly form stamping exercises. Each trip out frightens me a lot.  Am I strong enough?  Is my back strong enough?  Yes I am and yes it is but more than a trace of terror lingers.  And the only way through it is to keep doing these small things that scare me so that eventually they don't.

Anyway.  My two French pensions, from the state and from a private provider, both require formal verification each year that I am, well, still alive.  So having arrived at his office Mr B, the elderly, slightly raffish but charming notary, duly scrutinises me, my passport and my most recent British Gas bill (oh the horror) and then fills in the form and brings out this impressive red seal and stamp and signs to the effect that I have presented myself before him and that I was indeed alive (est vivante pour s'etre presente aujourd'hui devant nous) on April 17th, 2013 

Et voila I am officially confirmed as not dead and consequently eligible for the next twelve monthly payments.

I  hand over £25 and we chat a bit.  He says that he knows of many other people locally who are eligible for some kind of European pension which surprises me as I thought we were a comparatively rare breed.  I  say that if the UK does pull out of the EU in a few years time then they'd better make sure that our rights are preserved.  He says don't worry, he is sure they will be as it is a legal commitment which cannot be countermanded.  Hope so.

Why are solicitors' offices so fusty and Dickensian?  I temped for a solicitor in London whose office was very similar, both based in converted Victorian houses with poky, high ceilinged offices and uneven floors.  Dusty files everywhere, full to bursting and stacked haphazardly on metal filing cabinets, wartime utility desks and chairs which remind me of the furniture at home when I was growing up in the 1950s, and a dingy, worn and tea-stained fitted carpet.  I think Mr B must be keen on the horses, which would fit in with his raffishness, as there's a huge painting of a racing scene hanging on the wall behind his desk. 

In actual fact it's endearing. The office has character, as does Mr B.  I'd rather this than some modern, high-tech, glass and metal outfit. I'll be back again in six weeks or so with the second form. Hopefully I'll be a little less frightened.

Raindrops

A wild and blustery wind from the south-west so the shower passes as quickly as it arrived and the sun reapppears for fleeting moments. Now the raindrops on the window are diamonds, each one reflecting and refracting: clouds, sky, houses, trees.  

 

Lavender and Blackbirds

One of the joyous side effects of the sorting out of my gut flora has been the occasional flare up in the sinuses (don't ask me why, but apparently it's not uncommon).  I've never been particularly prone to sinus problems.  There's no sore throat or cold or flu, no swollen glands, just a dry burning pain at the top of the nose that at times makes me want to rip open my nasal cavities with my bare hands.  

The first bout was in early March when I tried to increase the probiotics dosage too suddenly; then a badly upset stomach was accompanied by the world's worst ever sinus headache.  Fortunately I had an appointment already booked with the cranial osteopath who worked her usual magic and the pain dissipated the same day. A second flare-up yesterday; this time the osteopath's on holiday and anyway it isn't that bad, but it's bad enough.

So switch off the central heating (too drying), open the windows to let in the damp rainy air and steam inhalations every few hours.  A towel to cover the head and a bowl of hot water with a couple of drops of lavender essential oil.  Surprisingly soothing.

But I wish it would all go away.

By way of homage to the modest but so useful plant, my own lavender bush a few summers ago - a magnet to the bumble and honey bees of the neighbourhood. 



(For anyone out there with an astrological bent my natal Moon at 25 Aries is currently  being battered by the ongoing planetary line-up and, yes, in particular Mars.   So no surprise perhaps.)

****

A pair of blackbirds have built a nest in the large evergreen shrub (nobody, not even the gardener, can identify it) by the compost heap. Peering into the shrub's depths the other day I caught sight of the female sitting on her eggs, quiet and unmoving.  I feel honoured.  The downside is that I won't be able to have the lawn mowed for several months until the young ones leave the nest for fear of driving the parents away, but do I care if the back garden resembles the savannah grasslands come June?  No.

Shades of Brown

Emotion

I don't cry much nowadays.

Increasingly my way of navigating life's rockier passages has been governed by pragmatism.  What must I do to sort this out?  Will crying help?  No.  Right then, let's move on.  Let's plough through.  Action.  Distraction.  If I start crying or allowing myself to wallow I won't be able to cope with what must be done.

 Odd then that twice before 10.00am today I became watery-eyed over something on the radio:
 the wonderful Kathleen Ferrier, who was to die far too young herself, singing  Che faro senza Eurydice (What is Life) from Orfeo et Eurydice, and the final episode of the Radio 4 Book of the Week adapation of The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev by Simon Morrison, the story of Serge and Lina Prokofiev.  Both in their way heartrending but very beautiful.  Love and separation and loss. I remembered: those are the things I used to cry over.  For hours, days at a time.

Good to be reminded that my emotions haven't shrivelled and died.  And good that I am able to respond once again to beauty. 

****

I must avoid this becoming a weather blog, but the forecasts say that from next week it will be getting warmer.   A pale, timorous sun appears for a few minutes then, seemingly overcome with shyness, disppears behind the clouds.  Perhaps she will become more courageous with time. 

From the window. 7.30 am

Silence. Nothing moves. A thin layer of frost covers the gardens, rigid washing on the line, the sky the palest of ice-blues.

Suddenly, shockingly, a continuous cloud of steam escapes from a house where the gas boiler has been switched on.  Warmth and moisture, free and unchallenged, ever-mutating, meet a frozen world.

Someone else is awake. A diffuse yet clear and strong white light from the east.  Sun up. 

Friday

The honour crimes campaigner Jasvinder Sanghera has just been talking on Desert Island Discs about her life and her relationship with/estrangement from her family.  Extraordinary and moving, and I was caught up in her story of how fear and inflexibility can close hearts and what grace and forgiveness entail. Both, in their way, equally terrifying. She chose a couple of memorable tracks, too.  Losing My Religion by  REM and Moonshadow by Cat Stevens.  Blasts from the past.

****

A chill wind still blows from the east, cutting through however many layers of clothing one happens to be wearing when venturing outside.  The birds seek shelter in the evergreen bush in the garden, only emerging for food when they must. Soup simmers in the stockpot in the kitchen and I have been comfortable in the armchair listening to the radio and admiring this week's daffodils in their vase.  After emotional storms yesterday, anxiety has retreated to low-tide level.  But it is lapping away on the horizon, too distant for me to hear this morning but I know it is there.  Ebb and flow. 

Lungwort

 noun

1a bristly herbaceous European plant of the borage family, typically having white-spotted leaves and pink flowers which turn blue as they age.

[so named because the leaves were said to have the appearance of a diseased lung]

Oxford Dictionary

 

In the garden the lungwort is flowering under stress. It has been ambushed by the weather, having been lulled into a false sense of optimism by the few relatively warm days we experienced earlier in the month.  I'm fond of it. I was given a couple of plants about five years ago and they've spread like wildfire.  With its mottled leaves and small, delicate heads of two-tone flowers it makes for great ground cover, plus it's hardy and resilient with a long flowering season.

I've some fellow feeling with the lungwort. It's been a rough couple of days spent folded up in the armchair with gut and back pain, wrapped in a duvet and drinking lots of water and hot ginger tea.  According to the naturopath the root cause of all this is dybiosis (the GP simply doled out repeat prescriptions for industrial strength antacids).  It will take time and persistence to crack.   I was in a bad way - worse than I realised at the time - in January when I started the treatment.  There has been improvement but flare-ups happen, and may well always do so to a degree.  Persistence is all.

****

At almost a month in I'm glad to be blogging again. I'm doing it almost entirely for myself, which for me is the only genuine motivation, though I'm always delighted and appreciative when old and new commenters drop by. But if one person reads what I have written, that's enough; in the real world I'm not one for crowds.   It's becoming a lifeline, the writing and the photography, that I'm grabbing onto to haul myself back to what passes for a more normal existence. No, I don't have exciting or deep things to write about but that's not the point.  The point is that I'm doing it.  Practice.  Like the Buddhists. The way I was put to the piano as a child morning and evening to practise my scales. 

Most importantly of all, it's a way of stepping into the current of life, of sticking two fingers up to pain and weakness and all that goes with it.   Each post, each photograph taken, builds momentum. 

Colour and Warmth

On the third day of spring, when the sky is leaden and the slushy overnight snow is melting slowly and grudgingly and we are told by the news bulletins to take care because it will all freeze tonight and the roads will be treacherous and a wicked easterly wind straight from the Urals is forecast and power supplies may have to be rationed if this weather continues, I am hunting around for colour and warmth.

Candles help.  So do red peppers.

Contrast

 


Cardiff 2008.  The nineteenth and twenty-first centuries.

A Victorian port, Cardiff, built on the coal from the valleys.  My grandfather was as Welsh as they come, born and bred here in the 1870s (this makes me feel really, really old), my grandmother an incomer from Devon, orphaned at age seven when she was packed off across the Bristol Channel to live with an aunt and uncle in the city.   Poor little mite.  She eventually became a teacher, met my grandfather and married him.

He was born into a large, bilingual working-class family, Welsh and English, but the Victorian education system was definitely not inclined to pander to wishy-washy notions of cultural identity.  English was the language of progress, of advancement and enlightenment.  Accordingly the children were forbidden to speak Welsh in school and punished if they did so, and eventually English took over their lives completely and, yes, he did indeed advance, got a good job and after the First World War moved his family to London.  Yet he returned to his origins, to Cardiff, with his second wife when he retired.  In his eighties he did try to relearn his lost mother tongue.  Too late, perhaps, he couldn't do it.

As I recall he disapproved of much of the modern world - pop music, football players - but he'd be surprised and delighted at how much of the Welsh language there is around the place in 2013. 

Waiting

The back is a bit stronger; the camera has been dusted off; the new PC/printer installed, and there's been a totally satisfying decluttering of my little office. I'm doing more. 

But decades of comfort eating and stress have caught up with me of late, brought to a head by the last three years of opiate painkillers for the back and glucose energy drinks.  Plus a couple of courses of antibiotics for good measure.  Grappling with some horribly tenacious digestive issues and a very inflamed and temperamental gut which triggers migraine-like headaches.  (If you're reading this and you're prone to both stress and overdoing the sugar, don't be like me and think it won't catch up with you ).  The positive news: I've been able to stop the painkillers and hospital tests show nothing dramatically nasty in the stomach.  So for now I'm  living on good quality protein, home made chicken bone broth as recommended by the naturopath I'm seeing, and lots of vegetables, probably the healthiest diet I've been on since mother's milk.   And vitamin supplements plus a probiotic at night. No sugar. No yeast.  No grain.

There has been improvement. But it's taking a long time.  Some days (quite a few actually) are distinctly yukky.

***

Three weeks of Mercury retrograde finishes this coming Sunday, so maybe more of a sense of movement.   Looking forward to spring. 

Flowers. Daffodils - pale cream this week.   They come to my door each Saturday during the season with the online groceries.  Last week's were an intense egg-yolk yellow, standing straight and resolute in their blue vase.

   
Taken a few years ago, this one.  National Museum of Wales coffee shop, Cardiff.

Anniversary

 It was the speed and suddenness of the whole thing.

One year ago today, a Friday just before midday, he was sleeping.  He suddenly awoke and went straight into his first ever full-blown seizure, flailing on the floor, rigid, pupils black and unseeing, his body jerked this way and that by an invisible force.  It probably only lasted a minute or two but seemed to go on for hours.  He came to eventually in his own urine, disoriented and dazed.  It took him time to be able to stand.

I knew there and then what I had to do.  He was eighteen years old with a history of failing kidneys and the resulting toxins had built up in his brain. The prognosis was that there would be more seizures and a general deterioration. I phoned the vet and asked for a home visit.

The car pulled up at around 2.30pm. A knock on the door. The veterinary nurse was with him.

They did it so well.  They both sat on the rug in the centre of the lounge  and arranged a few towels around them.  The cat, ever curious, wandered over unsteadily to investigate.  The nurse stroked him, talked softly and tickled him under his chin.  He rolled over onto his side on one of the towels in ecstasy, eyes closed, purring.  The vet prepared the hypodermic and very gently inserted it into his belly.  No need to restrain him in any way. He didn't notice the needle going in, his chin was still being tickled, his paws were kneading the nurse's uniform.   Then, peacefully, he drifted into sleep, still purring.  After two or three minutes the vet checked his heart with the stethescope. 

A perfect end.  And that was it.   I thanked them both as well as I could.  Mainly just by repeating thank you, thank you.

If a cat could ever be said to have good manners, he did.  Affectionate, quirky, self-contained, never pushy, a friend for all of the fifteen years we lived alongside one another.  And, as a bonus, he was very beautiful. 

I have his ashes still, which I will scatter in the river when I am able to walk there. Occasionally as I go around the house I talk out loud to him.  It's a happy thing to do, he's part of the fabric of this place and of my life and his presence still lingers.

May Blossom

  

 A cup and saucer, a sugar bowl and a small milk jug, all decorated with a blue and white floral pattern.  Underneath the saucer is the potter's mark, Leighton Pottery, and the pattern name, May Blossom.

My mother kept them in her special cupboard for tableware that was brought out for visitors but she never used these, probably because there was only one cup and saucer.  I've always had a weakness for florals and for blue and white cups and mugs, so I keep them on a shelf in the kitchen where I can see them every day.

A rummage around Google informs me that Leighton Pottery was in existence from 1940 to the mid-1950s, that the May Blossom series was made by the process of transferware.  I'm guessing they might have been a wedding present.  My parents didn't throw them out but they didn't cherish them.  I do.

I'm adding May Blossom crockery to the list of Things I Love.  This list, and its companion, Things I Want to Do are the rough drafts of the directions I want to take when I'm stronger. A  form of magic perhaps, to conjure up a bright future.

Not Quite Motionless

Contary to my worries, clever Blogger, new format and all, has somehow followed me over to my just-delivered new PC without my needing to remember the login details.  Good.  

Cold afternoon. A uniformly grey sky, no wind.   Motionless backgarden, washing hanging limply and dispiritedly on the rotary close drier.  Even the birds have been rendered mute.  When I was really ill I didn't have the energy to be anything other than more or less motionless myself but now that just a hint of strength is returning, like Noah's dove with the olive leaf, I can't settle.  I read for ten minutes, then back to the TV.  Then I come upstairs to the computer.  Not yet strong enough to clean house or go out and about or lead anything like a normal life, so writing seems like a good compromise.

I don't know if anyone is out there after all this time.  There is a whole list of bloggers from years ago that I still follow on my feeds and whose posts still speak to me, but like so many other areas of my life, my online world is one that will need some slow and steady rebuilding.  I'd like to get into the habit of just showing up here regularly and writing even if, on the surface, I don't have much to write about.  At least for now.