On Catherines, Names and Sundry Rubbish.

I was thinking earlier about the woman who stopped my way on the blasted heath yesterday evening (at twilight, note, although I doubt she was a witch because she didn’t have a beard and therefore bore no resemblance to Macbeth’s little crew of horrors, bent as they were upon persuading him onto the road to perdition’s flame. The burning mill is but a bagatelle in comparison. Don’t I talk rubbish sometimes?)

Anyway, the purpose of the post is simply to say that Catherine is a good name. It’s one of those names that are so much better than their diminutives. (I could go on to talk about dear Zoe’s insistence on calling me Jeffrey at this point, but I won’t.) Cathy is pleasant and girlish enough, but it lacks the substance, strength and gravitas of its parent. Cath is, in my opinion, simply unpleasant.

Catherine is elegant and enduring. It speaks of equanimity, intelligence, candour, reliability and good sense. If you were experiencing a crisis, you would expect a Catherine to calmly pull you through it. And Henry VIII must have liked the name because he married three of them and only executed one.

I’m listening to Julie Fowlis again, only a different album this time. And I’m feeling slightly nauseous on account of having just eaten an overripe banana. I thought it would be a healthier alternative to a pack of Jacob’s Mini Cheddars (Ploughman’s Cheshire Cheese flavour.) I’ll know better next time.

But back to the name game. I have to repeat something I’ve said several times on this blog: no woman’s name quite approaches Abigail for sheer pulling power. I don’t know what it is about that name, but it gets to me, you know? It does. Maybe it was Abigail who pulled me from a burning mill just in the nick of time during the course of a past life. Or maybe she was the only one who didn’t hit me when I was in the asylum.

And now I’m talking rubbish again, so I’m going to re-boot the computer because it gets cranky if I give it too much to do. But not before finishing Julie’s song set (I’d prefer it if she were called Aisling, but you can’t have everything, can you?)