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. 

Magpies

Flu. Off work. Aching back. Scrambled brain.

****

Candle and incense lit. Can’t focus on the breath. Or chant. Through the window a low, grey sky as the wind separates more leaves from the branches of the rowan tree.

A pair of magpies chuckle and squawk on a neighbour’s nearby roof. I don’t get the dislike these birds apparently evoke - they can be garrulous and, um, assertive, to be sure but they are also beautiful and there is a dash of entertaining villainy about them. Rather attractive, all that thieving.

Hard to sit still.

****

Finished: Restless, William Boyd. Well written spy story.
Surfed the net: Sporadically. Found this illuminating op-ed in the New York Times on the global implications of the current financial mayhem.
Watched: 2 episodes of the West Wing.
Watched: News bulletins. Lots of them: elections: climate change: Afghanistan: credit crunch. Retained some of it.
Purchased: The Millenium Collection - Tim Hardin (via Amazon). I had an LP of Tim Hardin in the 70s which I lost. Like many other things in that decade.

Drank rooibos tea.
Used one full box of tissues.
Coughed.
Fretted
Slept.
Cabin fever.

****

Two magpies.

One for sorrow
Two for joy ...

Practice

She practises weekend mornings.
She clasps her wrist behind her back better to resist the temptation
to guide the ball with a passing hand.
She dances the ball from knee to toe to head to torso.
Repeated, with variations, ad infinitum.
She loses control of the ball.
She keeps her composure.
She retrieves it.
Starts again.
No temper.
No exasperation.
No whoops of delight.
Just focus and concentration.
I hear the bounce as the ball meets the tarmac.
She makes no other sound.

I stop what I am doing and watch.
Respect.

You may have seen this in which case you'll understand.

Household gods

The ritual:

5.30am. Our neighbours are still asleep. We climb the stairs together, but as we near the landing he scampers ahead. He has eaten. I have my mug of hot black coffee. The study faces east and on June mornings like this it is flooded with sunlight.Still in my dressing gown I switch on the laptop and scan emails, blogs. He stretches out in his usual position on the window ledge, next to the brass figure of the Lord Shiva as Nataraja, the dancer.

Four-armed Shiva dances the world into enlightenment. The cat, felis catus, relaxes in the sun. He is, lest I forget, a creature of the goddess Bast, patron of the sun, women and secrets. He watches me intently. Now and again I return the favour, entranced as always by the way he folds his front paws inwards. Neat and tidy.

A few hundred yards away an early train clatters past. After a while I close the computer and head for the shower.

The cat stays where he is.

****

Summer solstice. In the abundance of such clear, generous light, everything seems possible, all barriers surmountable. Of course life isn't like that. Darkness has its own time. Dreams are shattered fairly regularly. Physical and emotional blockages imprison as deep as any dungeon.

Persistent delusion then? I don't think so. For good or ill, this is what light does.

River

I'm lucky. I knew I wanted to live near the river and now it is just a five minute walk away, bordered by fields where cattle graze.

Sometimes we regard it with apprehension. If enough rain falls in Wales, then sure enough a day or two later we are flooded. The reason these fields have survived being snapped up for housing is that they do double duty as a flood plain. No insurer would look at anything built on them.

I remember the first time I saw it in spate. It is terrifying. Angry. What shook me was the volume of the noise made by the rushing water. Stained reddish-brown by the topsoil gathered from flooded fields, the river boils and it roars. Whole tree trunks and branches are caught up, swept through the town and onwards downstream as swans, ducks and humans retreat to higher ground to wait out the torrent. Mostly though the Wye wears a tranquil face, a fisherman's and a canoeist's delight. At one time it was used for navigation - the path in the photos below was once a towpath - but no longer. Dog walkers and hikers now keep the grass short.

****

The internal combusion engine holds sway. The powers that be have recently decided that a major bypass should be built to cross the river just beyond where the cows are grazing in the bottom picture, near a rookery and the nesting site of a pair of buzzards. It will take years; the plans will be protested for many reasons, not all of them scenic and aesthetic. I'll do my part with local environmental groups, but I suspect the outcome may be inevitable.

Now I walk these fields with a sense of foreboding and try to to imprint on my memory the solitude, the sound of running water, the exact detail of a leaf, a bird. All of them ephemeral.

Love of place. Not dissimilar to love of a person.








The usual advice: it really is worth clicking to enlarge the photographs.

Links:

River Wye, Wikipedia
Wye Valley, Wikipedia
Wye Valley, AONB
CPRE transport page

R & R

Bank holiday weekend. I've changed plans and stayed close to home, mainly out of fatigue. Intermittently I've gardened, cleaned house and pottered. The last weeks at work have been difficult. Much distress and upheaval, not involving me directly but the cumulative effect has been draining. Until recently I've enjoyed this job: the organisation's work ethos is an excellent one and the people are more than compatible. In fact they've been a gift, which makes it worse. One day the acceptance will come that this is how life is sometimes.

Early morning. In my dressing gown I take a cup of tea outside and sit on the patio. It rained during the night and the paving stones are still damp, the sky heavy and overcast. The temperature is comfortably warm: for the last few days - the first time this year - there's been no temptation to switch on the heating. Daisies and dandelions have sprung up overnight on the lawn, scatterings of white and gold, and the scent of the blossom from the next door neighbour's fruit trees permeates the morning to the point of sensory overload. I sit back and try to disentangle the threads of birdsong: blackbird and thrush are simple, the rest need work.

That evening I go to take out the scraps for the compost. The blue crocs - kept outside for garden wear - have been comandeered.

Lepidoptery (Updated)

Update: Jan has come to the rescue in the comments. It is a Small White, or Small Cabbage White. They're quite common so it shows how much I know about butterflies. Fortunately the only vegetables I've planted this year are carrots.

I love the internet.

It's that compound eye that draws me in. And the fragility.

It landed on the bathroom windowsill a few mornings ago and stayed there long enough for me to grab a camera and take some shots. Then it was gone, fluttering erratically towards the trees on the other side of the road. The photographs are worth clicking to enlarge - the digital camera was on form and I had a cooperative subject.

April's quite early in the year for butterflies. Or is it a moth? After searching reference books and online I've drawn a blank. Medium size, perhaps 50-60mm. Pale yellow wings with a mottling of brown. The closest possibility I've come across is a brimstone.

Maybe there's a lepidopterist out there?

Labels aren't everything, but I want to know.