Samhain Notes.

Samhain is here again – the end of the harvest and the start of winter (according to the Celts). Today we enter ‘the darkest half of the year.’ Hades, here we come.

On a personal note, the health issues are making their presence felt and the old black dog is not merely snapping at my heels at the moment but leading the way with grim determination. Hence no blog posts for a few days.

For the sake of a bit of light entertainment, I just picked up some of my most-read posts from the stats file and re-read some of them. Most were from a purple period in 2017, shortly before the cancer diagnosis and kidney op. What a different polarity there was then. I was reminded of that line from a popular song:

… but how strange the change from major to minor

Did somebody say goodbye?

It might help that I’ve developed a sudden yen to read some John le Carré. I think I might have liked him, and I’m reliably informed that he was a much better writer than his choice of genre would normally suggest. Accordingly, I just ordered The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. The film adaptation is one of my favourites (and not only because Clare Bloom was in it, although her presence didn’t go unnoticed.)

A Failed Quest and Minor Notes.

While engaged in writing that last post about the kind of music in which male and female voices connect in sublime harmony, I went a little further towards understanding something I’ve long known to a lesser extent:

That state of sublime harmony is what I’ve been earnestly seeking all my life but never been able to find. It’s that old Holy Grail thing again – the devoted seeking of something which might exist in another dimension, or might not exist at all.

I can do partnerships, though only for as long as the flavour remains vibrant, but sublime harmony requires more than that. Sublime harmony requires union, and union has been ever elusive. It seems I was always destined to be an organ grinder without a monkey.

I’m spilling my guts a bit tonight, aren’t I? I wonder why.

*  *  *

Today was generally drab, desultory, and only mildly dysfunctional, but this evening I encountered a comely maiden from the village who tried to sell me a plastic poppy. I had no money in my pocket and so she went away again. It was, however, unusually mild by the standards normally expected of late October. The night-darkened windows of the little abode were graced with dancing moths again. And the bats are still visiting at dusk.

The Harmony of Yin and Yang.

I think it’s true to say that there are only two aspects of human endeavour which, generally speaking, have the power to make my eyes damp. One is extreme kindness; the other is a certain kind of music. And for me, the most evocative of all musical sounds is the bringing together of male and female voices in sublime harmony. It somehow makes the business of living complete; it’s the essence of universal wholeness; it’s the simplest and most powerful expression of yin and yang.

And that’s why I’m posting this rendition of Enya’s ‘May it Be’ from The Lord of the Rings, sung here by the ensemble called Voces8. I don’t often post musical videos these days, but tonight I decided that this one had to go in because, tonight, the passage beginning at 1.03 made my eyes damp.

 

Falling on Stony Ground.

It surprises me that, having lived in the Shire for over sixteen years, only now am I coming to be troubled by the acorns and other tree seeds littering the surface of the tarmac lanes. (In the circumstances, ‘littering’ is the wrong choice of participle, but I’ll leave it in place for the sake of adding irony.)

They are ubiquitous because there are a lot of hedgerow trees in these parts, so their number must run well into the thousands. There they lie, each with the potential to become a mighty tree contributing to the green health of our benighted planet, but condemned to be crushed and wasted under the disinterested tread of gas-guzzling vehicles.

I realise that I, too, drive a car, but that’s largely because the culture we’ve developed leaves me little choice. And so I know it’s complicated, but I still feel the sting of something valuable being wasted.

A Release of Steam.

What a week the last seven days have proved to be. A parcel delivered to the wrong address half a mile away, the courier driver claiming that I received it when he never came to this house, a complaint to the courier company to which I’ve still had no reply, a dead landline phone, slow internet with frequent drops, the spending of much time writing a carefully constructed letter of complaint to British Telecom even though I’ve still had no reply to one I sent back in August, glitches with the computer, glitches with the car, glitches with the mobile phone, glitches with the TV, glitches even with the electric kettle. And now YouTube declines to download even though everything else is downloading perfectly.YouTube is my daily connection to the world.

Why is everything around me cracking up? And why am I writing this when there’s no reason for anyone else to care? Because writing to the blog is the only pressure valve I possess. I have nothing else to say today.

Four Jackdaws of the Apocalypse.

Something mildly unusual happened yesterday. I was walking along Church Lane when I saw a group of four jackdaws flying towards me and about to pass overhead. There’s nothing unusual in that; I see flocks of jackdaws of various sizes just about every time I perambulate the Shire. What was unusual was my reaction: I was startled and felt a sense that there was something of deep significance about them, even though they were doing nothing different than they usually do.

The phrase ‘the four horsemen of the apocalypse’ dropped immediately into my mind, and I shrugged it off as nothing more than my habit of anthropomorphising birds and animals (see my referring to the eight sheep as ‘the Clanton gang’ in an earlier post.) But it didn’t explain why I found such a common sight startling and significant, so tonight I did a bit of research on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation.

It seems that the first horse and rider was said to portend plague, the second war, the third famine, and the fourth death (more explicitly, the death of a quarter of the population.) I suppose it was inevitable that I, being somewhat given to ascribing portentous relevance to the behaviour of birds, would connect this with the outbreak of Covid, the war in Ukraine (which some people fear might lead to a wider and more catastrophic conflict), and the forecast of a worsening cost of living crisis over the next year or so.

So what of the fourth: death? Well, I particularly noted that while three of the birds were flying close together in an orderly triangular formation, the fourth was a little behind and slightly to the side. Was that significant, or was it only notable to me because I have a fondness for regularity in patterns? I expect it was the latter and all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. (Haven’t used that quotation in many a long year.)

(Coincidentally, however, I might also mention that I saw two more skeins of geese flying north-west this evening. That makes eight altogether. I usually see just one, or occasionally two. Where do they come from? Where are they going? Why have I seen four times as many as I normally see?)

And does all this explain why, for a period of about ten years, I used to spend nearly every evening until the wee small hours of the morning writing speculative fiction?

The Ghost in the Machine: An Idle Speculation.

Let’s take two concepts which occupy my mind quite a lot these days:

The first is the notion, supported by a number of bona fide scientists, that the state of reality in which we function is actually a computer-generated simulation. The second is another notion, supported by an overwhelming amount of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence, that some fundamental part of us survives the death of the body and is later reborn into a different body.

It seems to me that in order to reconcile these two, apparently credible, concepts, one of two conditions would have to be met:

1. The part of us which survives the death of the body – call it consciousness or the soul as you wish – would have to have its source outside the simulation, either in the base reality or somewhere even beyond that. That raises a question: would the surviving entity return (be reincarnated) to the same simulation, a different simulation, the base reality, or some other environment such as an alternate dimension?

2. The energetic particles which make up the consciousness/soul would leave the simulation on the death of the simulated body, but remain in the computer program generating the simulation. They would later be re-used – either separately or en bloc – to function in another simulated body.

I think I would prefer the latter, partly because it offers a new slant on the term ‘the ghost in the machine.’ Then again, the former hypothesis allows the concept that the base reality is what we call ‘God’ or ‘the Universe’ in its figurative sense.

Am I boring anybody?

Heading For HP Hell.

I tried to make a post tonight but failed miserably – too grizzled of temper and low in spirits, and for the usual reason. (Damn the corporate world with all its iniquities and dysfunctional systems. Two hours I wasted today, getting nowhere.)

So tonight, being at a looser end than I usually am, I decided to watch the first Harry Potter film for about the twentieth time. The problem with watching a film for the twentieth time is that you notice even more flaws to add to the growing list you’ve been collecting over the first nineteen, and Harry Potter is – albeit regrettably – no exception.

I occasionally used to mention the flaws when I was in the habit of watching YouTube vids of HP clips set to music. Oh, what an education that was. Potterheads don’t like it, you know. To them, the mere suggestion of a flaw is the height of blasphemy. It’s about the equivalent of urinating on the altar steps of Canterbury Cathedral, and I got well trolled for my pains. I suppose I probably deserved it.

Today I Was Given a Present.

Remember the Ukrainian woman I met back in the summer, the one with the little girl who’s living in accommodation provided by a family in the village?

When I first approached her she was hesitant and looked scared of me. The second time I saw and spoke to her she was more open. She even smiled a little. Today I was out in the rain clearing the road grids when I heard a voice behind me. It was the Ukrainian woman saying ‘hellooooo…’ and she was smiling broadly.

That sort of thing means a lot to me, you know. It does. Seeing a troubled victim of a tyrant’s selfish aggression thawing out and growing brighter is a gift of rare magnitude to an empath.

Glitches and Lost Connections.

I think I broke a record today. I’m quite sure I’ve never had a day when so many things failed, broke down, or went wrong one way or another, between 10am and 2pm. I decided that either some damn planet must be in catastrophic retrograde or the computer program running the simulation we call reality needs a re-install. I suppose I should be grateful for new experiences, even if they do lead to mounting frustration and the onset of yet more anxiety.

And I’m missing those three precious sources of incandescence which used to keep me warm during the dark times, by which I mean the Priestess, the Woman in America, and the Lady B. I’m tempted to conclude that it’s quite implausible to imagine that young women and old men can be good friends except in beloved movies like Cherry Blossoms. Young people’s lives move on, you see, and the old guy is left watching the wake being dispersed by the waves long after the ship has disappeared below the horizon.

I’m whingeing again, I know I am. My motto these days seems to be: ‘If all else fails, have a whinge.’ So here’s another one:

The cold October wind is loud and coming from the east tonight. And easterly winds are the most proficient at gaining access to my house even though the well-sealed windows and doors are firmly shut. It’s all to do with the roof over the kitchen, and the remedy would be far too expensive for a private landlord to contemplate.

10pm, the very witching time of night when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world. Or, in my case, when I feel moved to allow myself a cup of hot coffee and a spinach sandwich.

On Butterflies and Thoughts That Abound.

Today was mild and sunny in the Shire, and this afternoon I saw a single bee and a single butterfly in the garden. The butterfly was one of these:

 

 

It’s a Speckled Wood, and is seen here feasting on the pollen of the celandine flower which is probably the most ubiquitous of the wild plants in these parts. It appears very early in spring and becomes more abundant as the season progresses, before disappearing in early summer. Today’s late flyer was searching the garden for something to feed on, and finding only the remnants of greenery still waiting to turn brown.

I did a bit of research on butterflies and discovered that most of them only live for 2-4 weeks. And so I wondered where butterflies go when they die, as I often wonder where I shall go when I die. Will there be butterflies, I thought. Who knows? I imagine various scenarios of what I would like to wake up to when the dream is over. This is one of them:

To rest on a beach where the sands of time are forever still – on a beach where warm winds blow from the south and sea birds do not cry, but sing – on a beach where human contact is rare and only of the finest vintage – on a beach where peace predominates and suffering is over the hill and far away.

*  *  *

Tonight I watched the second half of Cherry Blossoms. I watched the first fifty minutes last night, just up to the point where the action shifts from Germany to Japan. Tonight I met, and was captivated by, the lady Yu for the third time. I had my usual emotional moment when Rudi dances with his dead wife while Mount Fuji towers benevolently in the background. And then it ended.

I switched to the blog and checked the stats for visitors. There had been only one, at around the same time as I’d started watching the film. It was from Japan. Visits from Japan are rare, and how many times have I heard people say that there is no such thing as coincidence?

Coming Down to Earth.

Having little better to do, I thought I’d post a few pictures from back in the day when I thought I had a creative side. This blog has been sadly lacking anything visual lately and, well, I have nothing better to do, so…

This is a picture of my favourite doodle when I was a teenager, If Sigmund Freud were still alive, I’d show it to him and ask: ‘What do you think? Does it explain everything?’

 

This is a photograph of mine which was published in the Photography Yearbook one year. I don’t remember which year, and I don’t remember where I took it, but I suppose the things you feel moved to take photographs of (as opposed to what you’re being paid to take photographs of) must say something about what you think matters. 

 

And this is the artwork I did to accompany my story Shadows. In my opinion, it’s better than the story.

 

There was a time when I thought I was artistic, but then I realised I wasn't and stopped pretending. But at least the words I now string together are usually in the right order.

Bad News, a Bull's Head, and Bits.

Another difficult day: yet another example of corporate incompetence on the domestic front, general bad news on the home front, and even more disturbing events on the international front. I think I mentioned that I don’t have an off switch, so the day was replete with those levels of stress and anxiety to which I’m becoming ever more habituated these days, but of which I’m also becoming ever less tolerant.

No young ladies on foot, cycle or horseback, and no dogs joyful at the prospect of making my acquaintance. (I think it must be obvious by now that I would be content in a world populated almost exclusively by young women and dogs. They’re the two expressions of being to which I best relate. And did I mention the bull’s head that stared at me through a hole in a hedge yesterday? I expect there was a bull’s body behind it, but all I could see was the head. Walking past a hedge with a bull’s head in it is a surprisingly odd experience. I said ‘hello’ but the head didn’t answer.)

Today I did a particularly tough job in the garden, one I’ve been putting off for a while because I knew it wouldn’t be easy. In the process, I received an eye injury which I’m hoping will be temporary.

So now I’m at a loose end and considering the third watching of that wonderful film, Hanami-Sakura (aka Cherry Blossoms.) I considered giving a second outing to another wonderful film called Suffragette, but decided against if for two reasons. Firstly, it’s extremely harrowing, and secondly, the DVD box has a picture of Carey Mulligan staring out at me. Seeing Carey Mulligan staring at me with those Lady B eyes has a mildly disarming effect on my nervous system.

On the Gender Divide.

Every year until recently when the crop diminished, I used to take the produce of my apple tree up to the school for the cook to use in making desserts. On one occasion, being grateful and knowing of my unconventional ways and my blogging habit, the headmistress invited me to stay and talk to the kids. She thought they might have questions and I could add something different to the usual stuff of which the syllabus was composed. I went and sat at a table with four or five little boys, and one of them asked me to tell them a story.

And so I told them of the time I was backpacking around India in my youth. I related the story of how I was sitting at the edge of a village in a rural area when a King Cobra approached and raised its head ready to strike.

‘Blimey,’ said one of the boys, ‘that must have been frightening. What did you do?’

‘I picked up my guitar and played Mr Tambourine Man.’

‘And what did the snake do?’ asked one of the boys.

‘Remained perfectly still until I’d finished and then slithered away again.’

A sallow-skinned girl of around seven or eight was sitting alone on the grass, colouring in a picture of a ceremonial elephant complete with howdah. Without averting her eyes, she asked quietly:

‘Was any of that true?’

‘Nope.’

In fact, none of this is true apart from the first sentence. The rest is just making a point.

'So what is the point?' you might ask. 'Whatever you want it to be,' I might reply. And I might just add that the sallow-skinned girl was probably called Dominique, and probably grew up to drive an SUV through the streets of Mumbai while expressing great depth of meaning in a handful of words.

The last paragraph was written many years after the rest. I miss Dominique.

On Geese and Goosebumps.

A few days ago I heard a familiar honking sound at twilight and looked up to see a skein of geese heading north-west. The sight of a single skein flying north or north-west is something I see once nearly every autumn, and is one of the most iconic of seasonal signals. The combination of sight and sound, taken together with what it represents in the annual cycle, always causes a slight inner shiver.

And then last night the same thing happened and a second skein flew overhead. That’s unusual, but I have seen a second passage two or three times since I’ve lived here.

But tonight I heard the honking a third time. Flying overhead were four separate skeins, each consisting of ten to twenty birds and arranged in a diamond formation. That is most certainly unprecedented and added yet another first to this year’s growing list. And the majority of them involved birds.

And so I ask again: do the birds, supposedly harbingers of notable events, know something we don’t? My imaginative faculty says ‘probably.’ My rational half prefers ‘maybe.’

A Note on Nell and Lumens.

I met little Nell (as opposed to Little Nell who only exists in a book) again this evening. She’s the sweet little spaniel cross I first met about a year ago when she was out perambulating the lanes with her female householder, name of Catherine. Tonight she was conducting the same exercise with the male householder (husband of Catherine) whose name I don’t know because he’s never told me.

Nell seemed as pleased to see me as I was her and much fuss was bestowed in both directions. Meanwhile, the male householder kept me talking for some time on various topics, but mainly the fractured state of American culture (he’d met an American country and western singer in a bar, it appears, and learned all about it. My knowledge comes mostly from YouTube so I was able to keep pace.)

The problem with this encounter was that I was out clearing the road grids of fallen leaves and other debris while there was still enough light to see what I was doing. And the light was falling lumen by precious lumen for every minute the conversation continued. And I still had two other jobs to do before it was too dark find my way around the outside of my house. Eventually I made my apologies and we went our separate ways.

That was the point at which my endeavours took a difficult turn.  The combination of fallen leaves and near darkness made the finding of one grid lower down the lane difficult, but find it did because I’m clever like that. And I did mange to get the other two jobs done without tripping over anything or stepping on any of the little living things which utilise the path around the outside of my house at that point in the diurnal round. And then I came in and did the final in-house jobs before having a cup of tea. And now I’m writing inconsequential stuff like this because I’ve got nothing better to do. But at least I haven’t made a single mention of Putin or the very weird turn that British politics took today.

So it isn’t all bad. Life, of a sort, goes on.

On the Matter of Fraud and Hairstyles.

This might seem a strange thing to say, but it’s only since I’ve grown older that I’ve really noticed how much difference a hairstyle can make to a person’s facial characteristics.

It’s odd, isn’t it? The nose, the mouth, the chin, the cheek bones, the forehead, the eyes – all there just the same. And yet change the way that wispy stuff on top of the head is arranged and a dull face can look scintillating while an attractive one can suddenly become dull. And therein lies a problem of fraud, or at least falsehood.

Let’s say you go to a party and meet a young woman who looks absolutely ravishing. She invites you home to meet grandma and the two cats, and you stay overnight. The following morning you happen to see her coming out of the bathroom having had a shower, and her wet hair is slicked back across her head. Suddenly you wish you’d gone to the football match instead. (And this isn’t being sexist; it can work both ways.)

Something similar happened to me once, you know. I took up with a gorgeous-looking girl in a nightclub, she disappeared half way through the night, I used all my wiles to track her down, and then I wished I hadn’t. (And when she took me home it wasn’t grandma and the two cats I met, but her strange husband who got very angry because she’d served his rice pudding hot when she knew he liked it cold. My life’s been a bit odd like that. I saw her again some years later in a snooker hall, dallying with a young man who worked in my office. He was about ten years younger than her and had terribly bad breath. I think I potted the next red in celebration.)

So anyway, I’ve decided that in my next life I’m going to be President of the World Government (or the country’s Prime Minister, or the tribal chief, or whoever is in charge of whatever sort of system we’ve taken to living in by then.) And I’m going to make a law that nobody is allowed to have hair or wear hats. That way we will all be able to know what the person standing next to us really looks like and the world will be a better place.

Two Vaguely Harry Potterish Notes.

Those who watched the Harry Potter films carefully will have noticed that the whomping willow tree drops its leaves suddenly and in one fell swoop to denote the turning of the season. Today I was approaching one end of Meadow Lane when I saw a tree in yellow leaf dropping those leaves constantly and consistently like a heavy snow shower. The lane surfaces in all directions were the standard asphalt black, except beneath this tree. There it was a carpet of unbroken gold. There was no wind or other disturbing factor to explain it, so I must assume we have a whomping willow in the Shire. I never knew that.

*  *  *

Talking of Harry Potter, it was a little sad to read that Anthony Robert McMillan died today. AKA Robbie Coltrane. AKA Rubeus Hagrid. I read up on him and discovered we had quite a lot in common. For those who give some credence to astrology, I might mention that he was a Pisces which I’m not, but I gather my moon is in Pisces. I’m told it’s why I always tended to be drawn to Pisces women. I can honestly say, however, that I never felt the slightest inclination to be drawn to Pisces men, but maybe that’s the connection.

I tried to find out what killed him but was only pointed to newspaper websites which I never visit – too irritatingly slow and polluted with excessive advertising. I wonder whether he felt the same way.

Abdicating Responsibility.

For those not familiar with UK politics, I should first explain that a few weeks ago a woman called Liz Truss became the new Prime Minister following the abdication resignation of Boris Johnson. She immediately appointed one of her closest allies, Kwasi Kwarteng, as Chancellor of the Exchequer (that’s the post which has control of the nation’s finances, and is very senior.)

Together they formulated a plan to get Britain out of the mess it’s in consequent upon various factors (one of which is often said to be twelve years of Tory misrule, but that’s a matter of opinion.) Together they decided to reduce taxation in various ways, all of which would entirely – or at least mostly – benefit the rich. They said it would revitalise the economy and would be ‘better for everyone.’

It brought howls of derision, disbelief, disgust and desperation, mostly from the Bank of England, fellow Tory MPs, and the poorer 90% of the British population. (The Bank of England was concerned about financial stability and public borrowing, the Tory MPs feared it would lose them the next general election, and the nation’s poor were concerned that they would no longer be able to afford all those things which the capitalist overlords tell them they must have in order to belong. They were also concerned about their ability to heat their homes and feed themselves or their children because there happens to be an inflation crisis going on at the same time.)

But Liz and Kwasi persisted with their cunning plan, Liz being particularly insistent that it was the right thing to do and effectively implying that she was the prime architect of it.  Until today…

Today, in the face of increasing and persistent disquiet on all fronts, Liz took out the long knives and sacked her lieutenant, Kwasi, thereby throwing him out of the government. She says she’s staying.

And that’s politics.

Troubled.

My stress levels are threatening to blow the lid off at the moment because I can’t help critically observing the state of my three levels of reality. (I have no ‘off’ switch, you see.)

1. My personal affairs. I’m having trouble with several large corporations this week because their systems are broken. It’s quite maddening. The health issues continue to cause difficulty. So does getting older.

2. I look beyond that to the state of the country I live in. I see political and economic turmoil which threatens to cause an awful lot of confusion and hardship in the foreseeable future. It could even lead to blood on the streets of Hemel Hempstead.

3. I look further out again to the state of the world and see wars, abuses of power, and people protesting because they’ve had enough of being beaten down and trodden on. Ukraine, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iran, China, and more. I even wonder what that funny little man from North Korea who likes to fire missiles all around the western Pacific is going to do next. (Although I suspect that North Korea is actually the world’s paper tiger, but if you told the funny little man that he’d probably shoot off a few nuclear warheads in the direction of Tokyo, which wouldn’t be very nice.) And then there’s climate change…

Is any of this real, I ask myself. (Now we’re back to whether or not we’re just a simulation in a very big computer.) What does ‘real’ actually mean, I go on to ask myself further. (Because questions like that always come back to semantics and lead to further questions, like ‘why can’t I just have an off switch like everybody else?’)

This is why I never want to get up in the morning. This is why I’m tired of living and scared of dying. This is why I continue to long for that communication which will put a spring back into my step. Ironically, it’s also why I’m quite convinced it will never arrive.

(And I’m only giving vent to this rant because nothing worth reporting happened today, and even the birds in the garden are scared of me. I think I must be projecting bad energies.)

Ashbourne Ups and Downs.

I had to call into my GP surgery today on the way to Ashbourne. I was hoping to get a particularly important piece of paper and expected to have to argue strongly for it. (I’d even practiced a few run-throughs and was all prepared to be calmly assertive rather than aggressive.) All I got was the piece of paper, so that was a relief.

And then I met a dog called Wilson. He was a six month-old German Shepherd, and my word was he just the handsomest German Shepherd you could ever have the pleasure of encountering. He seemed to like me, too, and came over for much stroking and commendation. ‘He’s very friendly,’ said the female half of his two human companions. They always do this, you know. Whenever a dog is friendly, the accompanying humans always like to tell you that you’re nothing special. ‘He’s friendly with everybody,’ they say dismissively. Maybe they think you’re going to try to make away with their treasured pet, or maybe they’re jealous. I wouldn’t know. Humans have some pretty strange and disturbing quirks, which is why I mostly prefer to commune with dogs.

And talking of quirks, there’s a woman who works in one of the charity shops who always stares at me when I walk in, especially if she happens to be holding the door open at the time. She used to do it when she worked in a different charity shop, and I wonder whether it’s the small keratosis on my cheek which so fascinates her. (I could have it removed very easily, of course, but the dear old NHS is under enough financial pressure as it is without my adding to it on a matter which is purely cosmetic. I mean, who’s looking?)

OK, the woman in the charity shop is looking, and I harbour the suspicion that she’s thinking: ‘That man still hasn’t washed his face since the last time he had brown sauce on his chips and missed his mouth by about two inches.’ But she probably isn’t.

And I found that plaque I mentioned recently, the one which say that Charles Edward Stuart addressed the crowd there in 1745. It was on the wall of the town hall, next to another plaque commemorating the fact that a man was killed there when an iron bar fell down and hit him on the head in 1930. Such history we have on the doorstep.

But Sainsbury’s had no Staffordshire oatcakes today; that was the real bummer. I do so look forward to my Staffordshire oatcakes with grilled cheese and hot tomatoes rolled into them. In fact, there were several things I couldn’t get in Sainsbury’s today. It was a day of empty spaces on the shopping front. I’m tempted to think that Sainsbury’s – along with much of modern society – is going to the dogs, but I’m not that optimistic.

When Lionesses Aren't Hungry.

I was in a bit of a quandary earlier this evening. I knew that our summer heroines, the Lionesses (i.e. the English women’s football team) were due to play a friendly match against one of Europe’s less favoured teams, the Czech Republic (who didn’t even qualify for the European Championships.) And I knew that the game would be covered by free-to-air terrestrial TV (which is the only sort of TV I’ve got because I’m an INFJ and the vast majority of what the TV offers is of no interest to me and therefore not worth paying for.)

Now, all through the summer our brilliant girls in white brought the nation to its feet. They were unstoppable. They won the competition and scored a bagful of goals (several bags full actually.) I really wanted to watch them so as to relive those glorious summer evenings when the sublime combination of ladies’ legs and sporting success were my only reason to smile.

So what was the quandary? Simple: it’s cold in my living room because the heating is inadequate, and I didn’t really fancy sitting in it for two hours. But then I came to my senses:

‘If you were sitting in a plastic seat at the ground it would be even colder, you dummy,’ I told myself, ‘so don’t be such a wimp. Stick your bobbly woollen jacket on, pretend you’re under the stars in Brighton with a load of other hardy people who don’t even notice the temperature when the Lionesses are on the rampage. Watch the bloody football!’

And so I did. And it was a 0-0 draw. And I’m inconsolable.

(And that’s why I didn’t make the more earnest post about an interesting fact I learned today concerning the conflict between private and socialised healthcare. I expect I will when I’ve lifted myself out of the ditch of despond.)

A Note on a Personal Flaw.

One of the flaws in my nature is causing me some disquiet. It goes like this:

When I witness the suffering caused by the likes of Putin, and other powers and potentates in other parts of the world, I feel the suffering of the victims. It hurts and depresses me. I’m quite unable to take the view: ‘Why should I worry? It isn’t happening to me so why bother?’ because the universe in its wisdom endowed me with the curse of empathy, and so I can’t help feeling the pain and injustice visited on others. And when I’m hurting, my first instinct is to hurt back. I can’t help that either, at least not yet.

That’s the problem; that’s what’s troubling me. The better part of me doesn’t want to hurt back. It wants me to follow the Buddhist doctrine of non-judgemental observation. It wants me to see even Putin as yet another victim of an imperfect world.

So my question to myself is this: Do I have sufficient time left to achieve the goal of exercising non-judgemental observation? It contains a sublime irony because the more I see of a world being run by rabid dogs, the more urgently I feel the need to be getting the hell out of here.

Maybe the universe will choose to teach me in time, or maybe the increasingly popular simulation theory will do the job. If I can look at a glorious landscape and question its right to be regarded as real, maybe I can learn to apply the same process to suffering.

Time will tell. Walking on.

On Russia and the Legacy of Putin.

In last night’s Putin post I asked the question: ‘just how bonkers is he capable of becoming?’ This morning came the hint of an answer. Riled by the damage to one of his favourite bridges (possibly through the action of an enemy he created) he gave vent to his tantrum by murdering yet more Ukrainian civilians and leaving even more innocent people suffering the pain of bereavement.

This sort of thing was not unusual during the Middle Ages, the European Dark Ages, and for centuries before that. It still happens in more backward parts of the world today, but the rest of us feel we have gone beyond it. We don’t do that sort of thing any more. At the end of WWII we brought the United Nations into being in the hope that it would ensure a more peaceful future in which states could co-exist in an atmosphere of mutual respect. And we gave the power of veto to five countries which made up the Security Council, which, by a supreme irony, included Russia.

So where does the present situation leave Russia? It leaves it mired in the dark detritus of Putin’s mindset. Let’s not forget that the capital of Russia is geographically in the continent of Europe, and after the fall of the USSR the rest of us Europeans gradually learned to accept and embrace Russians as fellow beings. Russia became seen as a modern, sophisticated state where we could finally feel safe and welcome if we wanted to visit the grandeur of St Petersburg or the curiosities of Moscow. Putin is now taking it backwards to a state where it is once again reviled as place of darkness and aggression, dominated by the bestial instinct to grab territory through violence and cruelty.

Is that fair to Russians? Probably not. It seems there are plenty of them who oppose – mentally at least – Putin’s mediaeval machinations. But there are also others who back him, either through their own inner darkness or a blind belief in the propaganda he spews out, much of which is simply irrational. What I’d like to know is: Which side predominates.

And what of Putin himself? Who knows? His latest action suggests he is sinking into something no better than a rabid dog, and what do we do with rabid dogs?

On Putin and His Reputation.

Let’s look at a couple of simple, undeniable facts. Vladimir Putin orders the invasion of another country which has not threatened him in any way. In the mayhem which follows, he allows – and probably encourages – attacks on civilian targets which cause a large number of deaths and life-changing injuries among the civilian population of Ukraine. And yet when one of his prized bridges gets blown up (possibly by the opposition), he calls it ‘an act of terrorism.’

Well, let him. What he’s doing here is burying himself under a growing weight of absurd irrationality for all the world to see. If he wasn’t completely bonkers at the start of it all, he’s well on the way to getting there.

The problem for the rest of the world, of course, is just how bonkers he’s capable of becoming.

Suffering Simulation Blues.

I’ve been taking further interest in the proposal – credited by many scientists, apparently, especially the quantum variety – that the reality in which we think we’re living is actually a computer-generated simulation. And the more evidence I’m presented with, the more inclined I am to think it might be right. And the more inclined I am to think it might be right, the flatter and more depressed it makes me feel because every prospect, however pleasurable or exciting it may be, deflates in the face of a growing  sense that it isn’t real.

I tell myself that we have to carry on as though it is real because there’s no escaping it, but life then becomes a falsehood and I hate falsehoods. I’m working on the problem and taking solace from the fact that when I get engrossed in a film or a book, it’s no different than being engrossed in life. It’s just engaging with a different simulation. It puts a whole new slant on the Walter Mitty phenomenon.

A Rare Lady B Post and Bits.

So, what am I going to talk about tonight since life for a reclusive Shire dweller has been dull in every way today?

How about I make a rare Lady B post? OK, I’ll make a rare Lady B post.

I think I saw her yesterday, but I can’t be sure because the view was hindered by a companion, several hedges, random other growth, and a distance of around 100ft. But if it was her, I feel a little troubled.

It was mainly the hair that did it. It looked like phase III hair suggestive of a phase III situation. Such a curious statement will be pure gobbledegook to anybody reading it, of course, but that’s how I like it because I’m in the mood to be enigmatic to the point of being irritatingly opaque. And there were a couple of other factors, too, which I won’t bother to mention because they’re too vague.

The point is, you see, I’m so damnably fond of that young woman that if I thought she was hurting, I would hurt as well. Fortunately, I’m much given to speculative fancies that often prove wrong, so she probably isn’t hurting at all. That’s the view I’m going with.

*  *  *

I watched the film St Vincent last night. Naomi Watts was brilliant as the Russian prostitute, and my favourite line came from the Irish priest who tells his class of school kids: ‘We respect all religions in this class, but Catholicism is best because we wear the smartest clothes.’

*  *  *

I had no apple or carrot to take with me on my twilight stroll this evening, so would you credit the fact that the two geldings in the field down the lane just happened to be there watching me expectantly as I walked past? They’re never there when I have apple and carrot in my pocket. Seems the simulation isn’t playing ball. More on simulations later.

On Horses' Eyes and the Lady P.

I went out on my usual errand this evening armed with an apple and a carrot and more in hope than expectation. But guess what: not only was Millie there and approachable, but Cliff was there as well. I never noticed before how much bigger he is than Millie. If she’s sixteen hands, he has to be nearer seventeen. He’s a big horse, and he’s easily the softest of the three.

He was the one who came trotting over first and gave me a solid nudge in the forehead. (I assume that’s a sign of affection, but I might be wrong.) Anyway, the upshot was that they had half an apple and half a carrot each, and I came home with an empty pocket for a change. And then I learned something.

Cliff stood there looking at me, and something about the look in his eyes changed. I’d never thought of horses having facial expressions before. They have other forms of body language, but their faces are usually inscrutable. But I remembered having noticed before that they will sometimes have a wild look in their eyes if they’re scared or aggressive or suspicious. So it seems that horses do communicate with their eyes after all, and I suppose if you’re around them all the time you get to learn the code. (Cliff’s eyes seemed to say: ‘Call that a treat, because I don’t. Where’s the rest?’ But I might be wrong about that, too.)

On the walk back down the lane I got waved and smiled at again by the Lady B’s Dear Mama driving past me. I know I make a bit of a saga out of this, but it really does mean something to me. I always feel a little less fractured when I receive a smile and a wave from Dear Mama. There’s nothing swanky about her, you know. For all she’s Lady Penelope to my Boggis the Butler, she never pulls rank. (She never invites me for tea and muffins on the terrace either, but I’d probably only spill something if she did, so maybe it’s better that way.)

On the Routine and the Awe-Inspiring.

Tonight’s twilight was one of those in which you imagine the universe must be in a very bad mood and having a tantrum. All sorts of clouds there were, pure white cumulus mixed with near-black slabs waiting to spit rain, and every shape and shade of grey in between. And the rain did come, and then it stopped, and then it came again. The wind rose and fell and rose and fell. It was difficult to tell whether the sudden onset of roaring was a burst of angry wind or a plane flying low on its way to the airport thirty miles away.

I went for my walk as usual, of course, bearing the bag of goodies and searching for a horse to be the beneficiary. And as is usually the case, I ended up passing through the wood at the top of the lane in the hope that Millie would be close enough to receive the favour. Before I could find out, however, I was greeted by a sight verging on the apocalyptic.

The track through the wood faces west, and suddenly the intense orb of the sun appeared briefly on the horizon. The whole of the vaporous sky I could see below the level of the woodland canopy burned a brilliant hot orange, while the trunks of the trees turned black in silhouette against it. I might have been approaching Atlanta during the burning, or the conflagration at Manderley on the night trip from London. I rarely use the word ‘awesome’, but this was pretty close.

Millie was too far away as she always is, and so I made my way back out of the wood only to see another startling sight. The eastern sky displayed not one but two brilliantly coloured rainbows, a very big one and a smaller one inside it.

I don’t remember ever having seen a double rainbow before, although I might be wrong about that. But with all the firsts that this year has produced, along with all the unusual weather patterns, I can’t help feeling that something of substantial significance is starting, and that maybe we should be prepared for a white knuckle ride up ahead.

On Wellies, Wilderness, and a View of the World.

Today was utterly boring apart from the fact that I wore my new wellies for the first time. It came at a price, of course, because new wellies – along with all new shoes – react with the ground differently and force you to move your legs in a slightly different way. And then your legs ache and you’ve still got two more miles to walk until you can take them off again. Perseverance becomes the watchword and life is about nothing if not trials.

And then I cleared the lane grids of leaves and other debris again. I kept encountering patches of crunchiness on the road surface where it was littered with acorns and beech mast and the winged seeds of ash and sycamore. It brought up that old dream of mine in which I’m twenty years old and in possession of a vast tract of farmland in the manicured lowlands of England. I would stop all human activity on it and let nature have free rein to do what it will. And then I would leave it alone for fifty years before returning to marvel at the wilderness.

*  *  *

But I’m not here to talk about wellies and wildernesses. I’m here to talk about foreigners. I like them, you know; I really do. I think it’s because I was brought up in the English working class at a time when nobody I knew ever went abroad. I was considered posh among my classmates because my stepfather had an office job and so we went on holiday to Devon and Cornwall instead of Blackpool. The closest most of us got to a foreign trip was a sojourn to Rhyl in Wales on the office summer outing. Even Scotland was considered exotic, and Ireland was a truly mysterious place somewhere beyond the mist you could see hanging around Morecombe Bay. The Spanish Costas hadn’t yet been invented and we didn’t even know that Italians ate spaghetti which didn’t come out of a can.

And so all things foreign – including the people – held, for me, the promise of mystery and adventure. They still do, believe it or not, because some early impressions never completely leave you.

So now I want to broaden my horizons by meeting a foreigner, preferably a Swede, and even more preferably a pretty young lady Swede who exudes the fabled Swedish glumness from every pore and can talk for at least half an hour about the hidden symbolism of hard boiled eggs. If anyone feels inclined to apply for the position, I have to say that I’m in no position to offer pecuniary compensation. But I will freely undertake to engage my undivided attention until my perception of the hard boiled egg is educated to a level hitherto unknown.

A Spooky Spot in the Shire.

This morning and afternoon we had the longest spell of sustained rain since the spring. (I was out in it for about two hours.) And then the grey clouds lifted, the sun came out, and the temperature began to drop. Tonight’s twilight walk turned out to be a pretty cold one, but here’s what made it interesting:

Every evening when I go out for a stroll, I take an apple and a carrot in the hope of finding a horse to give them to. Mostly there’s only Millie and she’s too far away to hear my whistle, so the goodies get taken home again. But tonight I saw Cliff – stable mate to Millie and Rosie – in the last field at the top of the lane and close enough to have his attention attracted. He came over to me, put his head over the gate and gently nuzzled my forehead while I took the apple out of its bag and fished for the penknife in my pocket. Suddenly he looked up, shied so violently that he almost fell over, and then galloped away across to the far side of the field where he took refuge behind a bank of shrubs.

It was a bit of a shock and I wondered what he could have seen. I looked around and saw nothing, but horses are renowned for sensing threats even before they’re visible, so what was I to make of it? A mystery; that’s what I made of it. And here’s another odd fact:

Where we were standing is a matter of yards from the point at which the lane joins the main road, and at that point the main road narrows and winds around a tight double bend. The man who is married to the owner of the three horses once told me an odd story about that spot. He said he was driving around those bends when something ran across the road in front of him. He said it would be impossible to describe, but it definitely wasn’t human and was nothing like any animal he’d ever seen. And it ran on two legs.

You have to wonder, don’t you?

When I walked back down the lane to come home I made a point of turning round a couple of times to look behind me, but the cows in the fields lower down seemed unconcerned so I chose to follow their example.

A Notable Notch on the Calendar.

I remembered today that 4^th October is the anniversary of the death of my beloved collie dog, Em. I loved her dearly, and after the vet had come out to the house to deliver the coup de grace, I went out for a walk alone for the first time since she’d entered my life.

I was gripped by a sense that this was a pivotal point tipping my life onto a profoundly different track. My two cats had both died during the previous eleven months, and the third, most heart-breaking, death seemed significant. The following May my wife and I separated. In July I walked out of my safe office job and never went back. The following year I sold the house – the most favourite of all the nine I’d lived in up to that point – and moved into rented accommodation.

A period of turbulence and associated stress took hold in earnest, and the road it led onto has been quite the rollercoaster ride ever since. But I’ve learned a lot and I wouldn’t have had it any different.

And it all began on October 4^th, and I just felt like mentioning it.

A Little YouTube Mystery.

I sometimes watch YouTube videos made by an a capella ensemble called Voces8. They perform close harmony vocal arrangements of various works, including classical and liturgical pieces and also some classic rock and folk songs. And they’re supremely good at it.

I recently entered a complimentary comment on one of their videos, and a few days later I had an email which said ‘Harmonia loves your comment.’ I asked myself: ‘Who or what are Harmonia?’ Up to that point I hadn’t heard of them, so I investigated and discovered that the comment I’d entered on the Voces8 video was now entered on a Harmonia video of the same work and had disappeared from the original. I wondered whether Voces8 had changed their name, but no. They’re definitely two different groups, and the videos were made in different locations.

So how does a comment get switched from one video to another? How can that happen?

A Waddle and Quack Sort of Day.

My wall calendar told me I had an appointment today at the doctor’s for my annual flu jab. It was a nuisance because it meant I had to change my routines around quite drastically to accommodate it, but I set to the task manfully and arrived ten minutes early

The whole site was heaving with vehicles because, as I later discovered, a Covid booster clinic was being held at the hospital next door, so I parked somewhere illegal and made my way into the building. I went to check in at the computer terminal, only to be told – in big red letters – I do not recognise you. Go away. Or words to that effect.

‘Your computer says it doesn’t recognise me,’ I said to the woman on reception. She interrogated her own computer and said: ‘That’s because your appointment is next Tuesday, not today.’ My wall calendar had failed me, so I slunk off with a waddle and a quack and a very unhappy frown.

I decided to take a wander around Ashbourne to check the charity shops for heavy woollen sweaters and thick flannel shirts in the hope of being able to survive the approaching winter season. No luck. And then I walked past the Costa Coffee shop in the high street (which I think they call John Street or something silly; I’ve only lived near Ashbourne for twenty years and I’m still getting used to it. I swear there used to be a plaque at the top of the market square saying ‘Charles Edward Stuart stood here and addressed the crowd in 1745’ but I looked for it and couldn’t find that either.)

So, the fact is that I haven’t been inside the Ashbourne Costa Coffee shop since lockdown began two and a half years ago, and strange as it might seem – considering that it used to be a regular, weekly, and much-valued practice – I haven’t actually missed it. But today I did. I really, really wanted to go into my old favourite coffee shop and savour a medium Americano, not just for old times sake, but because I really, really fancied a cup of good coffee.

I came to my senses quickly. ‘To do so would be a frivolous and unconscionable waste of resources,’ I told myself. ‘You gave up being a wage slave in 1985 and headed off to do the things you wanted to do. Times were hard without a regular wage, but you put your nous for economy to good use and survived to be where you are today. These are strange, economically perilous times, my boy, so continue the good work. Gird up your loins (that’s a strange expression, isn’t it? Gird up your loins. Mmm…) and walk on.’

And so I did. I walked back to the car with much waddling and quacking and frowning, and came back here for a cup of tea and two morning coffee biscuits. Sometimes I think I’m a heart of oak, and sometimes I sense I’m as thick as two short planks.

An Eventful Twilight.

This evening’s stroll was remarkable for being surrounded by uncharacteristic busy-ness. I don’t usually see anybody in the evenings, but tonight there was a lot of traffic about, both vehicular and pedestrian.

I was curious to know why a man who lives at the bottom of the lane was sitting in his car with the engine running at the top of the lane, poking and stroking his smart phone. Why didn’t he wait until he got home? Was he, perhaps, texting the Other Woman, or am I projecting my own disreputable nature onto some poor innocent?

Why was the woman I frequently see in the morning out walking her dog approaching me at 7pm instead on the same errand? She said it was because the dog was becoming a bit loopy in its old age, but you can never tell, can you? It’s possible she was just trying to avoid me and failing miserably in the attempt.

Why did the unfamiliar woman in the unfamiliar car smile and wave at me as though she knew me when I hadn’t a clue who she was? And there was the man out walking his two unfamiliar dogs who did the same thing. I hadn’t a clue who he was either. Same with the woman riding a horse – the smile, the wave, the nice-to-see-you ‘hello.’ Who was she? I don’t know.

And it all started when I found myself following a woman I do know walking down the lane ahead of me. She waddles quickly on very short legs, but her gait is only about nine or ten inches so she looks like a cyclist peddling frantically in low gear and only managing about ½ a mile an hour. I had to stop three times and pretend to be studying the trees so as not to catch up with her.

But the best was the deep, surprisingly loud bellowing sound I heard coming from a field on the other side of the little wood at the top of the lane. It was a sound I’d never heard in these parts (or any other parts, come to that) and I really did entertain the notion that it might have been a bear escaped from captivity somewhere in the surrounding area. (It does happen, you know. There are people who keep exotic, and quite dangerous, pets at their homesteads, and there are plenty of relatively remote farmhouses in this area where such an animal might go unnoticed.)

But I had to find out, didn’t I, so I went through the wood to investigate. Now, it is a fact that creeping through a wood in the near darkness of advanced twilight can be a little unnerving when you’re entertaining the notion that there might be a bear on the other side of it. But I decided it was unlikely and so my nerve held. I discovered that it was nothing more than a horse in a field which hasn’t entertained a horse since old Ben died several years ago. Mystery solved, but why was it impersonating a bear instead of whinnying nicely as horses usually do?

On Bonding Birds and Badass Beetles.

Having done some shopping, washed the car, and given the lawn what I hope will be its last mow of the season, I spent half an hour outside in the sunshine with a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits. And while I did so I watched the jackdaws.

Over the past week or two they’ve taken to forming large flocks of maybe a hundred or so birds which fly hither and thither as a big, black mass with no apparent purpose. Occasionally two of them will break off and chase one another around, wheeling and diving as though they’re playing a game, which they probably are.

Is this an autumn thing, I wondered. Are they engaged in some sort of bonding exercise so they can huddle together through the winter in an attempt to stay warm and survive? I expect an ornithologist could probably tell me, but I don’t know any ornithologists so I’ll have to remain ignorant.

And last night I had a Devil’s Coach Horse beetle in my kitchen. It’s there again tonight, and although I generally like beetles, the Devil’s Coach Horse does encourage a minor fit of the creeps. Apart from being black – which many beetles are – they have long, sinuous bodies which waggle slightly when they walk. They’re notably aggressive creatures which prey ravenously on invertebrates such as earthworms and wood lice. When threatened – even by something as big as a human – they show their displeasure by opening their jaws, raising their abdomen in the manner of a scorpion, and emitting a foul smell from glands in their abdomen. And if you get too close, they can give you a painful bite.

The Wiki article pointed me in the direction of the omens associated with them, but I looked the other way. I have stresses and bad dreams aplenty already, so I don’t need any more. The last time I saw one was in August 2019, which was just about the time Covid was entering the world.

On Sherds and Shards and a Big White Bunny.

Would you like to know the difference between a sherd and a shard? (They’re archaeological terms in case you didn’t know.) I was reminded of it tonight when I came to that point in Maddie’s opus where she explained it to me in a comment on the original blog from which the book is taken. Are you ready?

A sherd is a fragment of pottery. A shard is a fragment of anything else. (Well, almost anything. A fragment of a deer’s pizzle wouldn’t be called a shard because it’s biological, but you know what I mean. Glass, metal, that kind of thing.) So why the difference? Because ‘sherd’ is an abbreviation of ‘potsherd.’ See what you can discover if you happen to bump into a highly intelligent and erudite American?

And do you know what just occurred to me? You might remember me mentioning a favourite bed time story my mother used to tell me when I was but a flea on the dog’s dinner. It was called ‘The Wig and the Wag and the Little Yellow Bag.’ For all the relevance that title had to the story, it could just as easily have been called ‘The Sherd and the Shard and the Little Pack of Lard.’ But now I’m being pointlessly whimsical, so let’s continue…

Maddie is a proper archaeologist now, you know. She’s Dr Maddie. I do so like to boast that little old uneducated me knows a real archaeologist, although I’m reminded of the fact that I did sort of know another archaeologist quite a long time ago. He was the man my wife took up with after we separated and his name was Cliff. When they engaged in cohabitation, they took my pet rabbit, Beaumont, with them. It was a blessing for dear Beaumont (he was a big white Dutch rabbit) because my lifestyle had been such that he’d had to spend a lot of his time confined to a hutch. After the translocation he was able to spend much more time wandering their garden at will, and he repaid their kindness by digging up the vegetables in their vegetable plot on an entirely voluntary basis. Weren’t they lucky?