A Nervy Night.

For the past few days I’ve had the notion that I should like to write a ghost story for Christmas, but I couldn’t think of a ghost story to write which wouldn’t be entirely predictable and therefore extremely tedious. Tonight I got an idea which appealed on principle because it’s a sort of reverse haunting story.

I ran it around and around in my head. Little Sadie Blackmore and the man she thought was Santa Claus, only he wasn’t (obviously.) The idea was there but the dialogue was troubling me because it would have to be pitched just perfectly so the dénouement would work. It wasn’t quite coming together and I found myself floundering with irritation. And on top of that – and most unusually – I began to feel spooked. My stories never spook me. Most things don’t. I decided to go upstairs to visit the bathroom instead.

That didn’t help because it was cold upstairs. The wind is howling and gusting strongly tonight, and however much I try to draught-proof this house the cold night air still gets in when the wind is howling and gusting strongly. Besides, I have another hospital visit scheduled for tomorrow – cardiology this time because the GP isn’t convinced that my symptoms can be explained away as merely boring old angina. Hospital visits always make me nervous for several reasons, some of which are obvious and some not, but nervous I am.

The ghost story has now gone back on the shelf, at least until the hospital visit is concluded. I might be back with some sort of report tomorrow night, or then again I might not (for several reasons, some of which are obvious and some not.) Time for hot coffee and Shirley Jackson now. Watch this space if you think it’s worth watching.

A Lesson Learned on a Lane.

‘Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger?’

There once was a friend with whom I talked of deep and meaningful things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax. Of cabbages and kings.

She is no more. I saw the physical form which she used to inhabit today. It looked alive and well and ostensibly the same as ever, but another soul has taken the reins now, a stranger unknown and unrecognised. 

So who is there to haunt when the dark mist descends and the memory beckons? To whom should I sing on cold winter nights when I no longer have warm blood to freeze?

For now, life moves on and so should I. Here endeth today’s lesson.

Walking Away.

Do you know what my problem is when it comes to answering responses to my comments on YouTube, especially pejorative ones? I think of so many ways to address the issue that I can’t decide which one to use. So then I switch to Plan B. I ask myself whether any of my options would serve any worthwhile purpose. The answer is almost always ‘no’ so I don’t bother. It happened again tonight.

(By the way, I bought a new desk lamp today to replace the one that gave up the ghost a couple of nights ago. I went back to the tried, tested and trusted anglepoise, that persistent monument to Modernist engineering in which form follows function. It’s much better than the old one and has improved the speed and accuracy of my typing no end. Who would have thought it?)

Keeping in Touch.

This week I’ve been very busy doing things that didn’t seem worth writing about, so that's why I haven't written anything. Take today for example:

I drove to the doctor’s to find out why they’ve been trying to contact me, and also to pick up my meds. The first was discovered but unresolved; the second was unsuccessful because the pharmacy was closed for lunch. So then I drove to the hospital in Derby for my CT scans, only to find that the mobile CT scanner unit wasn’t where the starchy admin woman on the phone told me it would be. (She treated me like a naughty little boy but was easily dismissed. Such people usually are.) I found it eventually and was put through the usual process of sliding in and out of something like a washing machine just as the spin cycle is starting. It was about as much fun as it usually is, but I did meet a woman from the Philippines, a man from Nigeria, and another man from Sri Lanka. I quite like meeting people who come from somewhere else.

Then it was back to Ashbourne to pick up my meds from the pharmacist, who I quite like because she has good energies and understands my sense of humour. Off into town next to get my week’s groceries. The checkout operator was one I haven’t seen before and appeared to be inexperienced because she failed to charge me for one of the fancy bread rolls I’m planning to have with my home-made soup later in the week. If only I hadn’t used all that petrol driving nearly fifty miles I would be 45p in profit on the day. But I did, so I’m not.

See? Not really worth writing about, apart from the fact that driving past the signpost for the village of Shirley reminded me of the odd fact that the name has attained a level of elevated significance over the past few years because of the people associated with it – two authors and a light bearer.

Tonight I watched the penultimate episode of Wallander. He went jetting off to Latvia and met probably the best looking of his several belles (and nearly got shot for his efforts.) Latvia looked even glummer than Sweden, but it probably isn’t. Wallander’s new Volvo isn’t black, by the way. It’s dark grey, which might or might not be the director’s signal that spring has arrived in Sweden.

Oh, and my smarty-pants desk lamp – which looks decidedly Scandinavian – broke down tonight. I sense a pattern emerging.

Sweden and the Matter of Skies.

I was watching an episode of Wallander last night in which there was a long tracking shot of the sky. It caused me to wonder how many people spend as much time as I do looking at the sky to get a sense of its personality (‘personality’ was deliberately chosen over ‘mood’ for reasons which might or might not be obvious.) And so I wrote to the priestess, who currently lives in Sweden, to ask whether she’d studied the Swedish sky and noted any differences between them and the Australian skies with which she grew up. I’ve had no reply yet.

It’s a fact that I’m affected to a surprising degree by the personality of skies. I can stare at them for quite long periods, trying to describe them to myself with words. When I do come up with words, though, they’re usually inadequate. What I do know is that they’re capable of pushing my mood all over the place, which is probably why the only time I come anywhere close to feeling relaxed is after dark when I’m in the house with the curtains drawn. So maybe I should now stop accusing the Swedes of being glum, and instead blame the personality of the skies over which they have no control.

And on the subject of moods, I’ve now performed eight blood pressure tests with my trusty new BP monitor (which cost me the princely sum of £24.99) and am currently declaring myself to be very nearly normal. Being normal is something to which I’m relatively unaccustomed, but I’ll live with it for now.

Off to the north country in a few minutes to tag along with my favourite Swedish detective and luxuriate in the glumness engendered by the gory goings-on in Ystad. Wallander drives a Volvo, you know. A black one.

Mists of Confusion.

I’ve been too wrapped up in myself to make posts for most of this week – mostly to do with medical matters. There’s been a lot of confusion around dealings with doctors, practice nurses and the front-of-house staff who field enquiries. Today I bought a blood pressure monitor, and tomorrow I begin the regime of using it twice a day. The long and short of it is that I still don’t know whether I have reason to be worried or not.

On top of that, the corporate world has been strutting its dysfunctional stuff as usual, and I’ve been presented with more evidence of their conniving little tricks to force us to live our lives as they want us to, rather than as we would wish it to be. And the politicians, at least in the form of government ministers, are becoming ever more irrational and mentally disorganised. I’m truly beginning to wonder whether Bedlam is beckoning or the matrix crumbling beyond repair.

And the world of nature is behaving oddly too. This evening I witnessed a hen pheasant running frantically about my garden for no apparent reason. She calmed down eventually and began looking up into the trees, and then took flight and perched in one of them, a practice to which hens are not generally given. Then the noise began – countless pheasant’s voices raised in cacophonous squawking fit to raise the dead in the churchyard. Was there a predator prowling around which I couldn’t see? I’ve no idea.

But what of the midges dancing profusely in the near-winter chill, behaving as though it were a balmy summer twilight? Did they know something I didn’t?

Or is it me? Is everything just fine and dandy and I’m the one who’s cracking up? Well, two other people have remarked to me recently that more and more things are malfunctioning and the prosecution of life is becoming more difficult. Covid doesn’t explain all of it, so is this a change in the winds of time, perhaps, another approaching ice age or antediluvian flood? As the congenitally nervous Horace Femm remarks in the classic 1932 movie, The Old Dark House: ‘I don’t wish to alarm you, Mrs Waverton, but I don’t quite know what we should do.’

But back in the trusty old world... I’ve watched the first two episodes of Wallander and it’s more depressing than I remember, being refreshingly awash with wholesome Swedish glumness. I expect I’ll persevere, and it is rather nice to hear Emily’s soulful voice singing soulfully at the beginning of every episode. I had a brief chat with her once on YouTube, you know. Did I say?

Needing an Explanation.

I had a response to one of my YouTube comments tonight. It ran:

Lp

L

L

P

L

Can anybody tell me what it means so I can return the favour without appearing ignorant? It looks vaguely like a literal form of semaphore, but that makes no sense and I don’t know what does.

On Good Things and Doctors.

Over the past few days the ratio of good things to bad things happening in my benighted little world has made the dizzying score of 5:1. This is unprecedented and I can’t help worrying that I’m going to have to pay for it somehow, but for now I’ll take the slightly better mood it has engendered and hope the wind has shifted.

*  *  *

And today I met Dr Claire, one of the panel of GPs at my surgery who I’ve never seen before. I was told in advance that she is lovely, and so she is. She seemed a little less concerned about the severity of my elevated blood pressure and conceived a sensible plan (not particularly cunning, but sensible) to address it. I liked Dr Claire, and that can’t be a bad thing when a chap is trying to get his blood pressure down.

But then I got to thinking about how medical care has changed during my lifetime. It’s all about large practices with panels of doctors now, and sometimes you can have five different issues and be treated by five different doctors. When I was a boy, every family had its family doctor who attended your needs from birth until he or she either retired or fell off the conveyor belt.

Ours was a man called Dr Day and he operated from a practice of one. If you needed to see a doctor, you saw Dr Day. No alternatives. And what was interesting was my mother’s reaction to him. He walked with a pronounced forward lean, you see, so when she saw him walking up the garden path she would always say: The doctor’s arrived. Ere’s me ’ead, me arse is coming. But as soon as he walked through the door, her manner changed from jocular to reverential.

He wore a suit and drove the latest model Citroen, and to see a new Citroen driving up a road where only three of the fifty or so dwellings had a car at all was a matter of considerable note. Here was a man of august status, the sort of man to whose tea you would have to add sugar if he so wished. I never saw my mother curtsey to him, but I was usually out of sight of the front door when she opened it.

*  *  *

So now I’m going to try to read some more of Shirley Jackson’s The Sundial and hope I can manage more than two pages before I fall asleep. That’s not a comment on Jackson’s writing, but a consequence of getting up two hours earlier than usual to have the pleasure of meeting Dr Claire. Getting up two hours earlier than usual has a disturbing feeling of unreality about it, and it depresses me. I’m not used to the quality of daylight being so unfamiliar.

Fluctuating Fortunes.

I have a regular phone call date with Mel every Sunday, and today we agreed that they’re not really phone calls any more. They’re woe-exchange sessions now, because we’re both going through phases in our lives when nearly everything that happens is woeful. We also agreed that it’s becoming a bit tedious.

But then, by an odd coincidence, two non-woeful things happened to me later.

The first involved a young woman coming down the lane on a horse. She kept looking at me in a way that suggested recognition, and when she got to the closest point of approach she smiled and said ‘hi.’ She was with a young man who was also riding a horse (a different one, unsurprisingly) and he ignored me altogether. Suddenly, and for the first time in a long time, the world seemed to be operating properly. And the fact that I still haven’t a clue who the woman was adds an air of mystery which doesn’t go amiss.

The second was just as exciting but in a different way. I’m always on the lookout for DVDs to see me through the long, dark nights of autumn, but I can rarely think of anything which takes my fancy and, when I do, it’s too expensive. Tonight I remembered Wallander, the Swedish cop drama English language version starring Kenneth Branagh. I watched several episodes over one winter some years ago, sitting in my living room with an open fire burning in the grate, and became quite fond of the character and the stories. I even remember getting some blog posts out of it. So I went onto eBay, expecting them to have it at some exorbitant price, and guess what I found. Series 1-3, 6 discs, £4.53 including postage. It’s on order.

So is this the start of better fortune, or just three weird sisters operating in the background, winning me with honest trifles to betray me in deepest consequence? I mean, look what happened to Macbeth. Do I want to go there?

Reduced to Rice Cakes.

I always get the munchies late at night, but my current catalogue of health issues has persuaded me to avoid my usual favoured comestibles which have a high fat and/or salt content and reach instead for things called:

Organic Rice Cakes

Lightly Salted

I swear they’re made of wood chippings held together with edible glue. They’re vaguely redolent of cardboard and taste of hardly anything but a hint of salt. They’re nothing like what I used to indulge my late night fancy with when I was a strapping young chap just home from carrying heavy amps around after a gig by my then wife’s rock band. I could easily and enthusiastically devour two large portions of fried fish and chips in those days (mine and the one the bassist decided he didn’t want, and it being around 2 o’clock in the morning and me having to be up for work tomorrow.)

How times change, and now I’m come to this and it probably serves me right.

(And still I’m telling myself that life is just a game and it really doesn’t matter.)

The Matter of Tiddly-om-pom-pom.

There was a popular music hall song back in the dark old days before little baby JJ made his entrance upon the stage to give frown lines an air of credibility. It ran something like.

 

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside 

Oh I do like to be beside the sea

Oh I do like to stroll along the prom, prom, prom

Where the brass band plays tiddly-om-pom-pom

 

I hate brass bands, you know. I always have, and I’m not entirely sure why. I suspect it stems from two of their most prominent features.

The first is that, however sensitively the individual players play their individual pieces, the overall sound of a brass band is about as unsubtle as instrumental music ever gets. It is, as you would expect, brassy. (Male voice choirs come a close second in my book, but that’s another story.)

The second is a cultural feature. Back in the days when northern England was the hotbed of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution, every large industrial town and city had a park with a bandstand. And every Sunday, when the weather was sufficiently clement and the dark, satanic mills fell quiet, a brass band would strike up and play jolly music to lift the poor members of the proletariat briefly out of their dark, unremitting perceptions of the daily grind.

It’s the jollity that troubles me. Brass band music is indelibly associated with the tiddly-om-pom-pom sound, and it doesn’t sit easily with frown lines except to extend them. It’s too naïve and redolent of the days when the working class still willingly tugged their forelocks to the men in charge, and still expected policemen to be their friends and protectors. To a mind made cynical by the unwholesome aspects of the human psyche, this is a problem.

In saying all this, I’m being untrue to my clan. I come from a city which grew like mould on the grime of the Victorian factory system, and part of my ancestry is northern English stock – part urban and part hill farmers, but poor people all. But then, another part of my ancestry is Irish, and traditional Irish folk music is a favourite of mine. I’m even perfectly happy when it takes a jolly turn – which it frequently does – probably because there’s not the slightest hint of brassy tiddly-om-pom-pom about it.

Dark Days and White Knights.

The past few days have been a bit fraught, but today the whole matter was brought to a satisfactory conclusion. A cloud lifted, but within three hours two more issues arose and the sun disappeared again. I suppose that’s what ‘hey, ho’ was invented for.

One of the issues involved a fractious conversation with my doctor’s receptionist. Eventually I read between the lines of what she was saying and realised that she was under pressure. She gave nothing explicitly away, but it became clear that she had failed to carry out an instruction within the expressed time limit, and now she was feeling the heat and I wasn’t helping.

Oh dear. Damsel in distress time. JJ’s cue to change direction and aim for the fairytale ending. I worked conscientiously to calm her down, and at the end of the conversation she managed a giggle. I’m a really nice bloke when I need to be, you know. I am. A bit unconsciously sexist maybe, but a really nice bloke. I listened to a rendition of Rum and Coca Cola by the Andrews Sisters to celebrate.

Meanwhile, up at the big house, something dark and slimy was slithering silently across the basement floor and beginning its ascent to the kitchen. I made that up because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Nuisances.

There’s a man living not far from me who I’ve taken to calling Mr Chainsaw. He likes chopping trees into small pieces, and to someone like me who reveres trees and hates loud, ugly, obtrusive noises, this is a bit of a nuisance.

And two visits from plumbers have so far failed to rectify a dripping tap in my bathroom. The offending tap is currently disconnected, which means that for the time being I will have to clean my teeth in the kitchen before going upstairs to bed. This is also a nuisance. Fortunately, the nightly scotch ration should be unaffected, and I’m still choosing to assume that life is just a game for some purpose known only to the Great Intelligence.

Perceptions.

I just finished reading Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman. The final scene is very short and leads us back into the light (of sorts.) The scene preceding it is much, much longer, and is, I think, about the most stressful scene I’ve ever read. The ache in my solar plexus was becoming close to intolerable.

And it was all in Natalie’s mind. And if it was in Natalie’s mind, it must have found its way there from Shirley Jackson’s. So do she and I have something in common, perhaps – the faculty of seeing odd, dark little tracks leading off the main road, and needing to explore them alone because the other people on the main road are unaware of both the track and the fact that we’ve taken a diversion. Is it a blessing or a curse?

But why would anybody be interested in this? Perception is the whole of the life experience, so now for something completely different.

*  *  *

It occurs to me that there are two types of day which most encapsulate the identity of the autumn season. One is the mellow, misty day when the view across the landscape consists of depleting half tones and there is a hint of the indistinct about the path through the woods. The other is the bright, crisp day when the sun shines brightly and the far hills are as clear as the hand in front of your face.

Yesterday was a mellow, misty day (I made the little ramble through the Harry Potter wood by way of celebration.) Today was the other sort.

I stood by a farm gate at the further end of Church Lane and gazed across the newly ploughed fields, down to the river valley and up from there to the high ground which separates the course of the River Dove from that of the Churnet. It’s a landscape I’ve described before – patchwork fields, hedgerows, single trees, copses, woods of more substance, and the occasional building to add the human dimension. The sun was shining benevolently and a narrow fold of cumulus cloud drifted sedately from right to left above the ridge in the far distance.

I felt a sudden inner conviction that I was standing on a film set waiting for my scene to finish so that I could leave the set, discuss the day's work with the director, and then head off for a shower and a hot meal. And I asked myself again: am I becoming psychotic and estranged from reality, or am I seeing glimpses of what reality really is? And, as usual, I came to no conclusion.

A Sort of Creative Boredom.

Today was one of those pointless days when everything you do is just an excuse for actually doing nothing at all. And now it’s approaching midnight, at which moment this pointless day will cease to be.

I can hear the washing machine in the kitchen next to my office. It’s humming and splashing and whining, and every so often it goes quiet as though it’s listening for any sound which might come from my office next to the kitchen. Sometimes the latest housefly to take up residence in my abode flies past the window which sits impassively between the office and the kitchen, but it doesn’t appear to notice me.

I just looked at the tall cupboard which sits, also impassively, in the corner of my office. In all the years I’ve lived here I’ve never seen it move, which is possibly why it suddenly didn’t seem real. I wondered whether anything is real. I wondered whether today was always destined to be pointless, or whether it just happened by accident.

I’ve nearly finished reading Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman. It’s reached the point where the heroine, Natalie Waite, is finally losing her mind. Or so the reviewers and critics and sundry other self-styled doyens of the literary cognoscenti believe. I don’t think she’s losing her mind at all. I think she’s only finding an alternative version of it, which might be dangerous or it might not. I understand Natalie Waite, you see, as I understand all Shirley Jackson’s heroines. And that’s probably not as strange as it sounds, because it probably means that I understand Shirley Jackson.

One thing I have noticed is that my posts are becoming stranger lately. Well, that’s OK. Tomorrow I might lose my new mind and go back to my old one. And then maybe I’ll find something to complain about, or even write a silly ditty.

Bits of me hurt and the housefly has found me and wishes to pay its respects.

The washing machine has finished its work, and the LED display behind the little window says END.

Three Lines on a Word.

I noted that an email I sent recently included the phrase ‘taken me to her bosom.’ An inner dialogue followed, and ended with the realisation that the word ‘flobberty’ is a very excellent one.

Smug Doctors and Dangling Ends.

You know, the problem with doctors – and especially young, inexperienced doctors – is that they appear to be under the delusion that anyone who isn’t a doctor must be, de facto, sorely lacking in both intelligence and erudition. So if the doctor I wrote about the other night had said ‘You have hypertension’ I could have replied ‘Well, of course I have hypertension. That’s because I’m rarely less than tense to a hyper degree.’ This would have confirmed his suspicions and prompted an even greater degree of smugness than is the norm. ‘No,’ he would have continued ‘hypertension is a disease characterised by worryingly high blood pressure.’ And then I could have smiled knowingly and said ‘I know, but I’m a writer, you see, and I do so like making words into patterns.’ And maybe it would have confused him utterly until he went pouf and disappeared up his own stethoscope.

And on that subject, the appointment with the rapid access chest pain clinic which I also wrote about was cancelled by voicemail this morning. Apparently, it’s because they have to be reassured that the medication has stabilised the hypertension before they’ll let me in, and that means going back to the smug young doctor to have my blood pressure tested again. I can’t help feeling that there’s something not entirely rational about this, but what would I know, ignorant dolt that I am.

*  *  *

I spent much of today tying up several loose ends – you know, the type of ends you leave dangling because you really can’t be bothered. Unfortunately, at least two of the ends continue to dangle.

I also spent some time in the garden applying pain and discomfort to my injured arm again. I don’t mind pushing through the pain (just so I don’t get some woman telling me ‘you should try becoming a mother, mate’.) What concerns me is the possibility that I might do some lasting damage. I suppose I should really make an appointment to see a physio.

And I had a reply from Rachel (see previous post.) She said ‘you know where I am if you need owt.’ (‘Owt’ is a northern English dialect word for ‘anything’, in case you didn’t know.) Wasn’t that splendid? But of course, I wouldn’t dream of targeting her if I have further difficulty with the company she works for, since what sort of reward would that be for her good offices? I’m really a very considerate sort of person, you know, who wants nothing more than to spread light and childish banter among my fellow beings. Even doctors when appropriate.

A Plaudit for Rachel.

I had an email from Rachel today. Rachel is a woman from my energy supplier who replied to a query I’d sent. She was the one who answered my last query, and today’s reply began ‘Hi Jeff. It’s me again.’

How delightfully refreshing is that? How often does one feel a sense of personal connection with somebody from the corporate world these days, somebody who is not only personable but also useful because her reply answered my query perfectly? It’s the Rachels of this world who pour balm on the troubled waters of a society obsessed with forcing us to deal almost exclusively with technological zombies.

And how can I reward her except by expressing my appreciation, which I will obviously do?

Being Oddly Sympathetic.

I sometimes think we’re a bit unfair to houseflies. They’re quite inoffensive little creatures really; they don’t even sting. And yet we will insist on battering them, crushing them under our hands, or poisoning them to death with noxious chemicals.

There’s one in my office at the moment. It keeps resting on my hand or head or ear, and I keep shooing it away. And then I get to thinking of the times I’ve wanted to make friends with a wild creature like a squirrel or a bird and they’ve given me a wide berth, yet here’s this innocent little fly wanting to make friends with me and I won’t let it. It doesn’t seem quite right somehow.

Dreaming in the Clinicians' Den.

I won’t be going for a follow-up blood pressure test at the surgery next Tuesday after all (see last Tuesday’s post.) I decided it was all a bit silly and cancelled it, in consequence of which I thought I would have next Tuesday free. I was wrong. I got a letter today calling me for an appointment to something called the Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinic – NURSE LED – Cardiology at the hospital. I’ve no idea what they’re planning to do with me, but I hope the leading nurse is responsive to my childish banter. I mean, what fun is there to be had in the clinicians’ den if your childish banter falls on deaf ears, gets deflected into the nearest urine bottle, and is never heard of again?

What I find most irritating about going to the hospital, though, is the car parking. There are seven car parks at the Royal Derby, and there have been times when I’ve driven straight into one. But there have been other times when I’ve had to queue for as long as forty minutes. And that means you have to make sure you reach the hospital at least forty minutes – preferably a little more – before your appointment time. What are you supposed to do if you’re lucky with the parking and reach the clinic forty minutes early?

If that happens I suppose I’ll have to park myself on a bench in the main corridor, pay some exorbitant fee for a plastic cup of hot chocolate from a vending machine, feast my eyes on the young nurses walking past, and pretend I’m on a beach in Tahiti. I’m quite good at imagining things when I’m bored, and it’s the only way you can carry on living inside your own head when the outside world insists on reeling you in like a luckless fish.

On Influence and Frustration.

Today was unremarkable in precisely the way that yesterday wasn’t. No being plugged into a machine like a poor Borg infantryman, no feeling more than a little discomfited by a doctor insinuating with some conviction that I might meet my end any second if I didn’t submit to immediate hospital incarceration, no nightmare drive into the lure of a blinding light through rain of apocalyptic intensity. In fact, as Albert was wont to remark upon seeing the sea languidly lapping the Blackpool sands, nothing to laugh at all. Today was a languid, lapping sort of day.

I just asked myself why I’m writing this in the way that I am. Blame Shirley Jackson. I just ordered another of her novels. (Her biography was far too expensive.)

And consider it fortunate that I cast aside the intention to write about the definition of ‘misogyny’ and the related conniving, childish opportunism displayed by dim-witted politicians from all three major British parties (on the one hand), and the thrill of seeing two aircraft which might have been WWII fighter planes flying in formation (of sorts) over my house on the other. I decided they were both just too tedious.

I might mention, however, that I’m getting a lot of internet dropouts at the moment. The last time it happened, my ISP pushed me through such an idiotically inflexible process that I gave up in the end and declined further attention. The problem righted itself eventually. If I should be offered the same process again I will decline immediately, since why suffer the frustration when you can give up at the beginning instead of the end and save yourself the trouble? Such would seem to be a good tactic for getting through the business of living these days. And I do appear to be much inclined to decline things at the moment.

And I’m scheduled to have two plumbers coming to my house tomorrow to rectify a couple of problems. I’ll believe it if it happens, but I’ll do my best to be polite to them anyway.

Life Mirroring Art.

One of the spookiest things I ever read was an episode in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. The governess is walking along the landing in the half light of early morning when she sees the ghost of Peter Quint coming out of the darkness of the hall and climbing the stairs towards her.

It crossed my mind for some reason late last night, and I wondered whether I would have the strength in such a situation to face and defy the spectre, knowing that it could do me no physical harm. And just as I was wondering that, a sudden, mysterious knock sounded from the direction of my kitchen. The kitchen is the room where most strange things happen in this house.

I still turned the light off when I went to bed.

On Blood, Banter, and Bad Omens.

I went for my ECG and consultation today. After the nurse took the ten sticky bits off, I was about to ask: ‘Did you check all my hearts or only one of them?’ hoping she would say: ‘How many do you have?’ and I could have replied: ‘Three. I’m not from this planet, you see. I come from a little world around 60 light years beyond Alpha Centauri. I came here because I heard the bananas were especially good, but then there was a revolution back home and the intergalactic fleet got mothballed. I’ve been here ever since.’ Only I didn’t because I know her of old. She’s terribly serious, never smiles, and is most certainly not the type to engage with the sort of childish banter I’m inclined to purvey when I’m being subjected to the ministrations of the medical fraternity. Instead I asked ‘Am I done? and she said ‘Yes.’ I sauntered off with commendable nonchalance to await the consultation.

That didn’t go so well. After studying the ECG print, he took my blood pressure and declared: ‘Your blood pressure is worryingly high. I need to get you into hospital.’

‘What, now?’ I asked incredulously.

‘Yes.’

‘You must be joking.’

The thing is, you see, being suddenly taken off to hospital is, for me, a bit like being a fish swimming contentedly in its own little pond when it feels the sharp pain of a hook puncturing its mouth, and then being lifted out into an alien environment, there to be weighed and held aloft for the purpose of having its photograph taken. And besides, I wouldn’t have had an overnight bag containing my dressing gown, slippers, change of clothes, a good book, and my phone charger. It wasn’t on. I just wanted to go home.

He gave me a bit of lecture about high blood pressure causing heart attacks, and how they happen suddenly without warning, and the sum total seemed to amount to ‘You could have a heart attack any minute.’ And then he calmed down a bit and admitted that I was free to decline the hospital admission if I wanted to. ‘I’ll do that, then,’ I said. He gave me a prescription for some anti-hypertension pills and some sort of spray to direct into my mouth if I get any pain around my heart. (How the hell you’re supposed to tell the difference between heart pain and indigestion I really don’t know.) I took the prescription to the pharmacy and knocked on the window.

‘Two pints of bitter and a gin and tonic,’ I requested of the pharmacy woman.

‘Do you want crisps as well?’ she replied.

Ah, blessings of blessings, I thought. Somebody who is prepared to engage with my childish banter at last.

‘No thanks. Got any peanuts?’

‘I’ll see.’

She took my prescription and came back with a paper package.

‘Sorry, we’re out of peanuts.’

‘OK, I’ll save the calories and lose some weight.’

Isn’t that how visits to the doctor should be? It is. So then I drove homeward.

Well now, the squally showers which had been around all day became suddenly worse as I drove up the hill coming out of the town, and soon the torrential rain assumed the nature of an almost impenetrable curtain. And can you believe that the western sky cleared at the same time? The sun was low and brilliant and underneath the level of the visor, but the rain didn’t let up one jot. Driving isn’t at all easy when you’re blinded by the sun and can’t see more than a hundred yards of road through a downpour of monsoon proportions. It all seemed rather ominous, or at least disturbingly apposite, but I made it back and had my dinner only half an hour later then usual.

All I have to do now is condition myself not to spend every waking minute wondering whether it’s my last. I’ll do my best. I have an appointment to go back for another blood pressure test at the same time next week. Please God, let the weather be fine and dry.

Being Busy and Knocking America.

I went to Ashbourne this morning to deliver a sample to the doctor. And when I got back I made a phone call to the person who presumed so intolerably on my good nature last night. And then I went for quite a long walk. And then I made my lunch and ate it. And then I washed the car. And then I did some work in the garden. And then I made my dinner and ate it. And then I washed the dishes, vacuumed my office and kitchen, and did the week’s ironing. (I was good at writing essays at school, you know, because I hardly ever used the term ‘and then.’ Thought I’d try it now that I’m getting old.)

I dislike being busy. I fear that if I allow the musing faculty to subside to slow burn I might suffer some sort of brain atrophy.

Tomorrow I have two appointments at the surgery, one for an ECG and one for a consultation. I wonder how much that would cost me in America. Fortunately, I’m not in America. And on the subject of America, I saw two historical references today.

The first was to Senator McCarthy, which caused me to think what a monument it was to American national insecurity to create a body called the Un-American Activities Committee. The second was a post I made about the incident when Colin Kaepernick took the knee instead of singing the national anthem with hand on heart, an action for which he got soundly pilloried. Together, they led to the indelible impression that courage and freedom of expression take second place to blind patriotism in the land of the free.

What I found personally scary, though, was this:

If you’d asked me when the Kaepernick incident happened, I would have guessed at about two years ago. My blog post was written in September 2016, more than five years ago. I’m feeling quite unsettled by the speed at which the years flash by now.

Simple Treats.

I had two big treats today. First, the Lady B’s mother smiled at me as she was driving past, and then the two donkeys which live in a field at the bottom end of the Shire came over to greet me. I realise that what they wanted was some patting and scratching and stroking and a handful of fresh hay each, but it was still a big treat. Being smiled at by handsome women and having donkeys seek my company is about as big as treats come these days.

And it did lead me to wonder why the Lady B’s mother bothers to smile at me since I’m not aware of anything about me worth smiling at. It could be that she finds my Quasimodo impressions amusing I suppose, but it didn’t look like that sort of smile.  It’s what humans do, though, isn’t it? It’s our way of saying ‘I accept your presence in my orbit and I’m not going to attack you.’ Her orbit still hasn’t stretched as far as inviting me into it for tea.

*  *  *

And I would just like to say that I greatly dislike this ad for some company which provides care services:

 

 

I think I’m supposed to envy the man in the orange shirt, but I don’t. If an attractive young woman puts her arm around me, I want it to be because she likes me, not because she’s being paid to take care of me. I don’t want to be taken care of. I find it offensive. I don’t want to go there.

 

Thankfully, my hair hasn't turned white yet and I've still got some on top of my head. That could, of course, be a mixed blessing, because if the Lady B's mother ever did invite me for tea, I would have to apologise for the shortness of my forelock.

Venting.

I’m absolutely steaming with indignation and in no mood to write a blog post. Why? Because I did several hours work for somebody recently purely as a favour, and now he’s presuming on my better nature by expecting me to do more and more. I hate that; I really do. I’m happy to do people favours, but there comes a point at which a line is crossed and you’re being taken advantage of. No. No. No.

But it’s Sunday night, darkness has fallen, the curtains are closed, Sheila Chandra is singing beautifully as only Sheila Chandra can, and I still want to write a post. Maybe it will improve my mood or maybe it won’t. I think I’ll make the effort to find out, so what should I write about?

I have a lodger (this isn’t very interesting but it will suffice while I’m still steaming with indignation.)

Remember the hen pheasant I talked about recently, the one I saw walking along the top of one of my tall hedges. That was a first, but it got better. The next time I saw her she was climbing from the hedge onto the heavy growth of ivy and clematis which crowns the roof of my garden shed. She proceeded to carve a hole in the growth and then crawled into it. Yesterday afternoon I spotted her sitting contentedly in another depression she’d made, apparently admiring the view in all directions.

I think she’s made my shed her permanent abode, and that isn’t typical pheasant behaviour. In fact, I’d say it marks her out as an unusually smart pheasant, and if there’s one thing pheasants are not renowned for, it’s being smart. Her name’s Phyllis.

Life in my private world is becoming curiouser and curiouser, and I’m still in a bad mood. Coffee next. Maybe that will work.

I have three doctor’s appointments this week.

My right arm is still injured, but I pushed through the pain with some garden work today.

I want an email from the priestess. She usually cheers me up.

I keep being reminded of when the Lady B was the sunshine in my life, but she’s over the hills and far away now.

That will have to do.

Bye.

The Mirror Crack'd.

I’d like to copy a small quotation I just read in Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman. She’s describing Natalie Waite’s father, a second rate, essentially failed writer, whose relationship with Natalie’s mother might be described as ‘perfunctory.’

He left many things undone, but never a word unsaid.

Who does that remind me of?

And what of the two saddest things I ever heard which related to me on a personal level? When my 5-year-old daughter woke one cold April morning to be told that I had left the night before, her first question was ‘Won’t he be back for Christmas?’ And much more recently, someone I held very dear sent me an email in which she wrote ‘I kept anticipating your appearance, but somehow I knew you wouldn’t turn up.’

The wise ones tell us we should let bygones be bygones and never feel remorse. It isn’t easy.

Nocturnal Sheep and Other Bits.

Guess what I saw at 2am about a week ago. Sheep grazing by the light of the full moon. Never seen that before. I remember reading once that Bram Stoker’s choices for the animals associated with Dracula and evil generally (wolves, bats, moths, dark haired young women etc) were based on those which are nocturnal by habit. Seems he forgot the sheep (and me.)

So that’s another first for this year. There have been a lot, haven’t there? I’ve no idea what having a year replete with firsts is supposed to denote by way of messages from the universe, omens, or other mystical allusions, but it probably isn’t all that bad.

I resumed the garden work today after last week’s arm damage. It hurt (quite a lot.) Still does.

So here we are in October. Goldener Oktober. Ripe apples. Beech leaves glowing deep yellow. Low orange sun enriching the limestone walls of buildings great and small. The firsts hints of winter cold. And, in my case, the next planned CT scans and first investigations into the apparent heart problem. I don’t want to die this month. I want to die in September so I can go to sleep with the trees.

The closest thing I have to a spark in my life these days is the seemingly endless supply of female protagonists in Shirley Jackson’s stories. They’re very strange, and I do so like strange women.

Had a postcard from Slovenia today. (It’s next door to Italy.)