Missing the Lady B and Managing the Beetroot.

I attended the village school Well Dressing ceremony this lunchtime. It was held in the village hall which adjoins the school because it was raining and therefore too wet to be held at the actual well which stands at the side of the lane. (It seemed a little ironic that the well was put there to provide water, but it couldn’t be privy to its very own ceremony because there was too much of the stuff falling from the sky. Life can be a little surreal at times.)

Anyway, the main reason for my attendance was the presumption that I might get the chance to have a brief word with the Lady B whose eldest daughter attends the school. There’s something I’ve been itching to know ever since she completed the London Marathon, and also something I’ve been wanting to say to her.

It didn’t work out. I stood in the doorway with random onlookers at one end of the hall, while the good lady stood with other mothers at the opposite end. Our eyes never met across the crowded room and so there was no conversation. It’s likely that she didn’t even notice me.

But I did my best. I waited through the kiddies’ songs and the little speeches and the sound of some woman going on about something religious (I think), and when the matter was concluded I waited by the door as the parents filed out. The Lady B was not among them. I went back into the hall but she was nowhere to be seen in there either. Maybe she had spotted me and was hiding, or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe it was simply one of those days when presumptions are doomed to failure.

By that time I was feeling hungry because I’d delayed my lunch, so I went home and had beans on toast with pickled beetroot and some plum tomatoes. (I read somewhere once that beetroot is supposed to be good for heart conditions and I’ve become a bit of a fan ever since. Liquorice, on the other hand, is said to be bad for heart conditions, which is a shame because I love the stuff. In fact, most of the foods I like best are bad for heart conditions, which probably explains why I have one.)

And that led me to think about those attainments to which only the very best and very worst of human beings might be expected to aspire. They would include committing an act of great courage to save lives, building a mighty empire, captaining the team which wins the rugby world cup, unseating a ruthless dictator en route to creating a better world, and so on and so forth. To me, it’s getting the slices of beetroot out of the bloody jar.

More Minor Mysteries.

1. Who was the young woman who smiled at me in Sainsbury’s today? It was the sort of smile normally reserved for people you know well, and I was sure I knew her from somewhere but couldn’t for the life of me remember where.

2. Who is the person who visits my blog frequently on a daily basis using Chrome browser and an Android phone? Blogger stats informs me of the posts they access, but never gives their location so I haven’t a clue who it is.

3. Why was there a black cat sitting on one of my bird feeding tables today? In the eighteen years of having bird tables I’ve seen plenty of birds, rats and squirrels on there, but never a cat. And does the fact that it was black signify something about which I should be concerned?

4. Why has my right eye suddenly returned more or less to normal so that I no longer look quite so like Quasimodo as I have for the past few days? And what do I do about the offer of a bell-ringing position at the local church? Suppose I decline it and then develop a hump?  What would become of me and my status in the community then, and where would I take Esmeralda when the mob is growing ravenous for gypsy blood?

Be Careful What You Joke About.

My right eye has developed a condition characterised by itching, reddening due to engorgement of the surrounding tissue, and the skin between the eyelid and eyebrow drooping to leave the eye looking partially closed. The effect of all this is to lay a longstanding joke of mine that I’m beginning to look like Quasimodo. It isn’t a joke any more. I really am beginning to look like the fabled hero of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, at least as he is represented in the classic 1939 film adaptation.

This is of some concern to me, but I’ve decided it needn’t be because I no longer have any reason to be vain. Time waits for no one and no one is impervious to the physical effects of ageing, not even me.

And so if children hide behind their mothers’ skirts as I pass by them, if women with babies give me a noticeably wide birth, if the staff in shops and coffee houses pause and stare for several pregnant seconds before asking ‘how may I help you?’, if groups of young women point at me and giggle, if young men smirk through ill-disguised sideways glances, I only have to convince myself that it doesn’t matter and I’m not embarrassed, and then all may be well.

But it does raise a question: Is it better to be pitied or mocked? I’ll definitely take the latter.

On Ear Woes and the Minds of Women.

Last Thursday I went for an appointment at the doctor’s where a nurse checked my ears for wax. I felt quite sure that wax was the cause of my current hearing difficulty. She told me there was wax in both ears but the left one was worse, which made sense because that’s the one giving most trouble. An appointment was made to have it removed after a requisite period of dropping olive oil into the offending organs, and today I reported for the procedure.

I saw a different nurse who assured me that there was no wax at all in the right ear, and so little in the left one that it wasn’t worth bothering with. Consequently, there was nothing to be done. I suggested that maybe I should see a doctor. She disagreed. ‘Optician,’ she replied. Optician? For ears? At that point it became complicated… Suffice it to say that I eventually settled on a plan of inaction: Do nothing and hope it goes away of its own accord, which I feel is quite likely. Bear in mind that opticians don’t operate under the purview of the NHS so they require payment for whatever they do. And bear in mind also that they are genetically programmed to find something wrong so they can sell you something to correct whatever it is. In other words, they’re good capitalists. (Although I’m fast coming to the opinion that the phrase ‘good capitalist’ is an oxymoron. And it’s an interesting coincidence that I’m also coming to the view that only morons think otherwise.)

*  *  *

I’m going to lighten up now and list three things I particularly like and three things I particularly dislike:

Dislikes First:

1. Bureaucrats who believe they’re entitled to make decisions based on their own, often irrational or at least jaundiced, moral compass, rather than applying the rules without judgement.

2. Senior politicians who continue to play fatuous little games even as Rome burns almost to a wasteland.

3. Members of the corporate world who try to fool the gullible into believing they have a heart by putting Any way we can help, we will at the bottom of every page of their website. This is so outrageously disingenuous as to be unforgivable (even to a capitalist.)

Likes:

1. Dogs with long floppy ears who rush to smother you in fuss whenever they encounter you on the lane.

2. Little girls with hats on (and preferably carrying baskets for some odd reason.)

3. Month-old lambs which regard you inquisitively before rushing off to their mothers for protection.

And a ‘Don’t Know’ for Good Measure:

Women who smile at you but say nothing when you try to engage them in conversation. Running away I understand. Giving a curt, dismissive reply I understand. Even a slap in the mouth I understand. But smiling silently? This is a lamentable gap in what I thought was a reasonably comprehensive understanding of the female psyche.

Breaking a Little of the Ice.

Last night I decided it was about time I made the effort to write something to the blog. (It’s been my primary connection with the outside world for the past fourteen years and I miss it.) But first there was the small matter of dealing with my monthly electric bill: print the statement for my records and pay the bill online.

That was when the Glitch God decided to throw a tantrum. The statement wouldn’t print, the online payment received no acknowledgement, and then the browser crashed. I got it all back in working order eventually and repeated the operations, and the only casualty was my bank balance; I’d paid my bill twice. That will be the subject of tomorrow’s phone call. (I didn’t do it today because I spent most of it wandering around my roots – the estate of houses I lived on between the ages of 1 and 11. My daughter has moved there with some of her offspring and I paid a visit. In retrospect it feels a little bizarre.)

Anyway, by the time I’d finished pressing buttons and tearing my hair out, it was too late to make a post. I listened to some music on YouTube instead.

But you know, I have a problem. It feels as though when I started this blog fourteen years ago I was given a truck load of things to say – various categories, matters of opinion, the fruits of observation, rants about life’s iniquities, silly ditties, honest fictions, and so on. But now I feel that the truck is empty, so where do I go from here? I don’t know yet. Maybe tomorrow or next week the ice will all melt and normal service will be resumed. Or maybe it won't. Life is a fickle mistress.

On a Dolorous Day and the Colour of Boots.

Today began with an email informing me of the death of my ex’s brother from myeloma. It set the tone for a gloomy day replete with leaden skies, a cool airflow, and a damp, dispiriting atmosphere.

The afternoon was an even more dispiriting tale of dysfunction and frustration as I tried to get answers to a couple of simple queries, first from a pensions provider and then from a retailer from whom I have ordered something online. Both endeavours failed miserably, and it struck me that we in Britain are saddled with a government intent upon pursuing its fixation with the illusion of economic growth while being oblivious to the fact that the matrix is cracking badly down here at grass roots level. It might be apposite to remark that ‘modern systems suck’ (and I just did, so there you are.) I think it might have something to do with the fact that our Prime Minister is a millionaire who learned his economics in America.

On a lighter note, I find myself suddenly possessed of a desire to wear stylish shoes. I don’t know where it it’s come from, but I do remember having a pair of tan Cuban heel boots when I was about fifteen. I recall how good I felt in them – so much more elevated in the pecking order, you might say. Then again, you might not, but I also recall having a second pair which were similar in style but black. They didn’t have the same effect at all, and I never could work out why.

Momentous May.

And so we meander into the merry month of May and, as always, my senses become heightened with anticipation. May stands proud as being the month which has always brought more significant circumstances into my life than any of the other eleven. Many beginnings, many endings, many substantial changes of direction, some pleasant and some not so pleasant, but all substantially instructive, and all contributing valuable strands to the weaving of life’s great tapestry.

I wrote a post enumerating some of them many years ago, and since then there have been added two more – the marriage of the Lady B and the coming of her first daughter. I could wax eloquent on why those two events were so significant, but I won’t. (Because the blog is public so I never know who might be reading it.) Suffice it to say that, without either knowledge or intent, the Lady B, bless her, taught me something I thought I would never learn. (I shall never forget that glorious May morning in 2018 and the vision of a woman, statuesque and radiant, in a long blue dress. If I’d been a composer I could have echoed Debussy with my composition of La Fille Aux Cheveux D’Ébène.)

But enough for now. Who knows whether this May will add a diamond or a dark grey cloud to the tapestry. The wheel of life guards its secret plans with such short horizons.