Filling in a Few Blanks.

I’ve had lots of things to say to this blog over the past week but have been too busy doing other things and haven’t had time to write. I have half an hour to spare now so I’ll briefly touch on a few.

There was an extended post around my assertion that: ‘Marriage is not a partnership; it’s a union. They’re very different.’ I talked about it in earlier post some years ago, but since it forms part of one of the reasons why I never held a relationship longer than seven years, I thought it worth mentioning again from a different angle. Too busy.

The report on my visit to the opticians (see earlier post) about my ear issue may be summarised very briefly. I dutifully turned up at the appointed time and was told ‘We’re full. Try again next week.’ A few minutes later I encountered a truly cadaverous young woman in Ashbourne and found the experience mildly alarming. I doubt the two circumstances were connected.

There was a pheasant chick feeding on one of the bird tables this week. I’ve never seen a pheasant chick on any bird table before, and I do so like first experiences.

Charlotte the Spider goes missing quite often now, but always comes back. I’m tempted to wonder whether she likes my company, but can’t imagine why she should.

The adverts I most hate are those featuring people putting on sickly smiles because they’ve done what the ad told them to do: Buy this; do that; go here; take delight in this wonderful experience… The list goes on. ‘Look at us,’ say the artificial smiles. ‘We did, and look how happy we are!’ Fake and utterly, utterly hateful.

The big one: My blog used to provide me with a ready-made cyberspace social circle, but it’s now completely disappeared. They’ve all gone and I miss them. And there are times in the wee small hours when the combination of timing, appropriate music, and the effects of the double scotches produce a maddening combination of nostalgia and sentimentality. At such times I want to write to them and say ‘Would you please come back and be my friend again.’ I don’t, of course, for two reasons. The first is that it would sound needy, and there are few things in life I less want to sound than needy. The second, and greater, reason is that it would be unfair to the people involved. That’s because I know that when the cold light of day replaces nostalgia and sentimentality with cynicism and depression, I become a different person and would change my mind. And so I desist.

There were more, but my half hour is up.

Considering Charlotte's Ego.

Charlotte the spider went missing for a couple of hours today. She did return to the window sill eventually, but when I enquired about her little sojourn she declined to answer.

She did take up a new position a little closer to where I stand at the sink though – only about two inches closer, but I suppose two inches is quite a lot to a spider. I suspect she quite likes me really, just doesn’t like to say so. It doesn’t fit the image, does it?

On Charlottes and Coincidences.

I have a lodger; her name is Charlotte (as in Charlotte’s Web, the author of which lived in Uttoxeter for a while, apparently. Such are the coincidences which must give us pause.)

She’s a spider, you see, a big one, and she’s taken up residence on my kitchen window sill. She’s been there for two days and is a fast learner. At first she was a bit cautious if my hand went in that direction while reaching for something. But now she’s used to my habits and doesn’t bother to move when I take the soap out of the soap dish, which is very close to where she sits waiting for whatever she’s waiting for.

Mostly she only moves when I’m washing the dishes. She walks slowly towards me, presumably attracted by vibrations undetectable to we mere humans, but then stops and walks slowly back again. I suppose she’s disappointed, poor thing. And of course, I’ve started talking to her as any responsible landlord would, but she hasn’t taken up the offer of a conversation yet. Neither has she shown the slightest inclination to wrap me in sticky stuff.

So how do I know she’s female? Well, I read an article some years ago which said that spiders which live in the house during the summer almost always are. The males prefer to spend the warmer days outside, apparently, and come into the house during the autumn for the mating season. (I suspect that spiders are a lot brighter than we think they are, but maybe not.) And the whole article might be a load of old baloney for all I know, but in the absence or evidence to the contrary I will continue to assume that Charlotte is a lady spider.

*  *  *

And I watched another episode of the crime drama tonight, and another actress I knew from my theatre days showed up. This is becoming a habit, and I’m inclined to wonder whether this is another coincidence which should give me pause. Her name wasn’t Sarah, though, nor even Charlotte. It was Jo something-or-other, but I don’t remember the rest.

Farage's Surprise and Inconsequential Oddments.

Ever since little Nigel Farage appeared on the political scene I’ve pilloried him because he really is a silly little prat.

But this week – for the first time ever in my experience – he said something which made sense. It was in connection with the real motivation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was largely similar to what I’ve been saying all along. I admit to having been very surprised.

And look what happened. Suddenly, everybody who is anybody in the murky world of high level politics is crawling all over his back and calling him an idiot of the first order. Even Zelensky is jumping onto the band wagon with a level of condemnation that is little short of hysterical.

Does that surprise me? No, not at all. That’s just politicians being politicians, and fully justifies my having no faith or trust in any of them.

*  *  *

I sat out in the garden lightly clad this evening as the darkness was falling, and felt fully comfortable. Has summer finally arrived in Blighty, do you think?

*  *  *

I bought a pack of Earl Grey tea bags last week and have now developed the habit of using it for my afternoon tea. Fruity tea? Fruity tea. Never let it be said that JJ is not possessed of an adventurous spirit.

On the Matter of Ears.

Following on from my ear issue as reported in my post of 10^th May, I went into my regular opticians today and related my experience with the practice nurse:

‘She told me that doctors don’t do ears; opticians do. Do you?’

‘No,’ replied the man on the reception desk with a friendly smile (I’m always a little suspicious of men with friendly smiles. I wonder why.) He continued: 'But Specsavers over the road do.' 

 

I went over the road to Specsavers.

‘I’m told you do ears,’ I said.

At that point the whole thing became confused, mainly because the young woman on reception (who never smiled once, which I also found a little suspicious because young women in shops are usually much given to smiling) seemed confused about the nature of my requirements. I think she was inexperienced (and I’ve always been prepared to accommodate inexperience in young women, as you would probably expect.) Eventually I convinced her of the nature of my requirements and she took herself off for advice, having first asked me to take a seat ‘on one of the green chairs.’ (I wondered what deleterious consequences might await some poor soul who sat on a chair which wasn’t green – and even remarked as much to the woman sitting on the green chair next to mine – but noticed that all the chairs I could see from that angle were green anyway, so there was no need to worry.) And then she came back, having apparently consulted the audiologist.

‘We only do arranged appointments for people under fifty five,’ she began. Others have to use the drop-in facility.’

‘How do you know I’m not under fifty five?’ I enquired with a commendable show of earnestness. (The woman in the green seat next to mine smirked. I suspect it’s all a matter of confidence because the young woman receptionist said nothing for a while, but she did look mildly discomfited and definitely blushed.)

‘The drop-in facility is at 1.30 on Mondays and Thursdays,’ she continued.

There was a pregnant pause while I consulted my mental diary.

‘OK, I’ll come back next Thursday.’

And so I might, and then I left.

*  *  *

I really don’t belong here, you know. A man on YouTube told me that not belonging is a sure sign of being an old soul. I expect he gets lots of hits from people who like to be told they’re old souls, and makes lots of money out of it. Such is life in the 21^st century.

Seeing an Earlier Sarah.

I was watching a crime drama video on the computer tonight and saw a familiar face on the screen (and heard a familiar voice intoning the requisite lines.) I soon recognised her as an actress I’d known during my time working at the theatre.

She came to my house several times with the other actors to play actory games and smoke actory pot. She rang me a few times to talk about things that were troubling her, such as whether being highly impulsive is a good or a bad thing. She even held my hand on a railway station one cold winter morning. (Heaven knows why; I didn’t ask her to.) She called me the day after my mother died, and when I told her the story of how my mother had waited until I fell asleep (after thirty eight hours of being awake) before passing, she simply said 'What a motherly thing to do.' And I wrote a song for her which she seemed to like.

I worked out from the registration plates on the cars in the drama that it must have been made around twelve years after I’d last seen her, which is why it had taken me a few seconds to recognise her. Time moves apace and people change a lot in twelve years. But her body language, her voice, and her eyes were the same.

I googled her name some years ago and discovered that she’d married some rich bloke and moved to Manhattan. I wonder whether she did it on impulse.

And there she was all these years later, looking at me out of a computer monitor. Her name was Sarah, too. It’s odd how life weaves little repeating patterns, isn’t it? 

An Odd Couple and Other Notes.

After having two phials of my blood extracted at the GP surgery today, I paid a visit to my old haunt the Costa Coffee shop in Ashbourne. Sitting on the opposite side of the room was a couple – a young man of around twenty, and a woman who I would guess was around fifteen years his senior. The young man was facing forward and showed little expression or interest in anything. The woman, however, was leaning towards him with that look on her face. (You know – the look? I’m sure you do.) I saw her put her arm around his shoulder before caressing his neck. He remained impassive, but when I glanced at his companion she was staring at me with hot, piercing eyes and what appeared to be a mild expression of triumph on her face. She looked foreign to me, possibly Czech I thought, though on what basis I couldn’t rightly say. And then they left together and I remained intrigued.

So then I turned my attention to the high school girls sitting at various tables around the establishment, and it struck me that they look so different from the high school girls of my generation. The boys don’t look so different, but the girls do. They’re nearly all around 7ft tall with legs that look as though Jack has been spreading his magic beans around. Heaven knows what he would find if he climbed one of those overgrown appendages: something unsavoury, I suspect. (Or maybe not. Given my own history in such matters, I’m led to presume that cynicism has climbed the ladder of my jaded psyche and now occupies a dominant position.)

And by way of returning to matters entirely wholesome, I might mention that I’ve seen the Lady B three times over the past five days. Having become accustomed to seeing her more at the rate of once every five months, it seems she has become the proverbial bad penny. Not that I’m complaining, you understand. The sun still comes out every time, just as it always did.

Breaching.

I sense that my grip on this blog is slipping, which is a shame because it’s been my mainstay and my best friend for quite a long time. Interestingly, the blog isn’t losing its grip on me. It keeps hanging on resolutely, reminding me that people who live mostly in their heads need a release valve to let out some of the tension. The problem is that the valve is sticking at the moment. I’ve had plenty to say recently, but lacked the mental energy to commit it to the keyboard.

But one thing is becoming apparent to me lately, so maybe it’s worth jotting a note about it.

I’m beginning to have personal experience of the fact that as we age, the process of physical degradation becomes too marked to ignore. We become uglier of visage; the distribution of cranial hair thins out and what’s left of it becomes finer. And it changes colour from dark brown (in my case) to grey or white. Our bodies grow deformed, our muscles become weaker, and they ache more readily after relatively little effort. Four of our five senses – touch is the exception – lose the acuity which kept them ever ready for fight, flight, or finer feelings. Our minds become shrouded in a light mist and our physical balance a little precarious.

And then there’s the matter of smell. When I was a boy there were several occasions on which it was necessary to visit care homes and geriatric hospitals, and what struck me most was the smell – stale urine and other rank odours emanating, I naturally presumed, from the old people occupying the place. The presumption that old people smell bad became deeply ingrained in my psyche, and it’s still there. It probably isn’t true, but I’ve always made a point of never getting near enough to find out. (Shameful, I suppose, but there you are.) And so it’s still a worry and a reason to keep my distance even further from the few people I might get physically close to, so as to save them the discomfort and me the embarrassment.

(On one occasion once upon a time the Lady B said to me: ‘come closer so I can hear you better.’ I was happy to oblige in those far off days, but now I think I should be more circumspect and measure the distance more conservatively. Four feet or thereabouts would seem about right, especially if there’s at least a brisk breeze blowing in the opposite direction.)

But at least there’s comfort to be had from the fact that dogs have different sensibilities to us, so maybe I can still enjoy the enthusiastic attention of friendly canines with long, floppy ears. Dogs are not given to pejorative judgment of people who emanate an unsavoury odour, but regard dubious smells as being merely a matter of curiosity.