Needing Traffic Control.

I’ve mentioned before that I have two new bee hives in the little stone wall behind my house. It just so happens that the path around the side of my house, and which is my only means of getting from the back to the front, is on the flight path used by the bees to get from their hives to the flowers in the front garden.

Collisions are becoming a regular occurrence. Every day I get frequently bopped on the head, the mouth, the nose, etc. Fortunately, none of the bees has so far succumbed to the presumed urge to sting the interloper, and neither have I witnessed any injury to any of the little stripy guys. That’s a blessing because I feel no ill will towards them and I’m grateful for the fact that they’re probably responsible for my big crop of free apples every autumn.

But I clearly need traffic lights installing between my door and my shed, and a further set by the front porch. That would be difficult to do in a domestic garden and I doubt the agent would be accommodating enough to pay for them. Maybe it would help if I put a big paper bag over my head with eye holes cut into it. The cost would be miniscule and the locals would have fun shaking their incredulous heads even more frequently than they already do.

Farage Sorts Out Sweden.

There’s a recommendation come up on YouTube for a lengthy diatribe by Nigel Farage on ‘why gangs are torching Sweden.’

Let me explain something to anybody who doesn’t already know it. There is nothing in the spectrum of British politics to match Nigel Farage for combining childish stupidity with the most absurd delusion of importance. The only thing big about Nigel Farage is the extent to which he is a laughing stock, and the only important thing the lesson we can learn from allowing juvenile populism any semblance of a profile whatsoever.

And so I would recommend that anybody who downloads and watches this video be transported to Sweden, there to spare no effort in the attempt to be consumed in the flames of the torches. It might reasonably be suggested that life is too good for them.

It’s had 250,000 views.

On Hermione and Consequences.

I’m currently watching the complete series of Harry Potter movies again. I shouldn’t, you know; I really shouldn’t. But let me say no more on the matter. I refuse absolutely to talk of Hermione Grainger, for to do so would leave my reputation in tatters, crushed by the weight of cruel misconstruction. Ms Hermione Grainger is sacrosanct and will not be talked about. And so, to move on…

I saw the-person-who-doesn’t-live-here-any-more’s car again today. It might be recalled that such sightings have become a notable and mildly mysterious feature of my mundane life lately, but today it presented a different face. It was dirty.

Now, to understand the significance of this seemingly insignificant fact, you need first to understand that the-person-who-doesn’t-live-here-any-more’s car is one of the world’s shining things (much like the-person-who-doesn’t-live-here-any-more, which may or may not be coincidental.) Its predecessor wasn’t always so blessed; I’ve known times when its predecessor looked very much as though it were making a triumphant and excessively mud-spattered return from the Paris to Dakar rally – it having been decked out in the renowned British racing green livery an’ all – but the latest steed of Germanic origin is a more refined creature. It shines as if by magic, settled to its more mature role in a changing world. And so to see it dirty was a shock. Maybe it was camouflaged to protect it from the prying eyes of ne’er-do-wells like yours truly. Or maybe I’m presuming an improbable significance. I think I probably am.

I’m in a strange mood tonight. Intriguing creatures lurk deep inside somewhere: fabled and fantastical creatures, shifting and shimmying, calling in ancient voices to stir the blood of fervent and fertile imagination. I can’t ignore them, and why should I?

And they’re not quite as strange as the man who stared at me with dark eyes filled with malevolent intent while I waited in the queue for the kiosk in the Co-op today. Or maybe his stare was more maniacal than malevolent. Yes, I do believe it to be so. A swift perusal of his body language and general demeanour led me to believe that he was a little removed from the normal avenues of perception within which most of us function. He was accompanied by an old lady, and he was greedily consuming some pastry comestible which I assumed had not yet been paid for.

I’m old enough to know the type; I’ve encountered them before; I know that those so afflicted can turn on a whim and do dire things because consequences are of no consequence to them. And so I declined to return the stare, but stood my ground with an air of studied nonchalance. I got away with it. I might not always be so lucky.  (And all I wanted was a bottle of milk.)

All this from watching a Harry Potter movie… I shouldn’t do it, you know; I really shouldn’t. Is my reputation safe, I wonder?

For Kaetlyn.

Anybody wishing to hear a sad but heart-warming story could do little better than read this post from a fellow blogger.

Fellow blogger? My world is very sparsely populated these days; those who choose to enter my orbit – and do so with my welcome – are but a small handful of beautiful and compelling people. They are the tiny flecks of gold for which the prospectors search among the rocks and silt of the mountain streams. Kaetlyn is up there with the best of them.

She kept me company on an almost daily basis during my dark days in the winter, often writing long missives well into the early hours when she was busy with more meaningful work of her own. She was the hand held over the gunwale to help me swim when I was struggling with a heavy sea.

So how can I not honour her, even though she will probably have reservations about me making this post because there is nothing of the egoist about her? She has the same doubts and fears and anxieties as all truthful, searching, feeling people do. I’ve no doubt she will excuse me, though, because she will respect my right to honour those few great souls I deem worth honouring.

Thank you, Kaetlyn. May your recovery be swift and your life abound with golden sunlight.

Frustration.

I had a good post all lined up in my head tonight, about the latest picture of Trump to appear on the BBC News website. I put on my ex-photographer's hat for inspiration, and though I say it myself, it even had the odd decent (or maybe indecent) joke. Like the line about the call girl who’d been hurriedly recruited to give the President moral support, and the one about Melania and the photographer being in collusion because it makes Donald look as dumb as he really is.

But there was a problem: the post was only worth making if it was illustrated with the image itself. I went to the website and right clicked. Oh dear, it was one of those pictures you can’t download. Some you can and some you can’t; this was one of the latter. Scrap the post.

That’s a shame. The debris is still rattling around inside my head, but when something’s gotta go, it’s gotta go. And now I’m left wondering whether the call girl is still sitting in the corner of the Oval Office off camera, or whether she’s moved into the inner circle by now. Not knowing can absolutely ruin a nice fantasy.

English Bricks.

I referred to a dear friend in a post this morning as ‘a bit of a brick.’ Just so the meaning’s clear to those whose first language isn’t English, maybe I should explain that a ‘brick’ in that context is a person whose unstinting support can be relied on when you need it. This must not be confused with ‘thick as a brick’, which is something else entirely.

A Mysterious Visitor.

According to Blogger stats, I’m currently getting repeated visits from somewhere called Unknown Region. This is odd because we all assume that the gods at Google are omniscient. If they can show you a view of the street where your great, great grandmother lived in Uzbekistan, how come there’s a place they don’t know about?

Could it be one of those mysterious, suspiciously shaped places on maps which are coloured white so you don’t realise there’s something missing – rather like Douglas Adams’s alien which put a blanket over its head on the rational assumption that if it couldn’t see its enemy, its enemy couldn’t see it?

Whoever it is uses Chrome with Linux. Please advance and be recognised.

A Car with Spirit.

The person-who-doesn’t-live-here-any-more seems to have stopped haunting me for the time being, but her car hasn’t. I keep seeing it in various places when I hardly ever used to see it at all. Today it passed me on the lane when I was perusing the sheep and quietly minding my own business, and two days ago I saw it parked close to mine in Sainsbury’s car park. Last week I saw it on three days in succession.

So is it haunting me, stalking me, or neither of the above? I strongly suspect the latter; I strongly suspect it’s mere coincidence, even though there are those who insist that ‘there’s no such thing as coincidence.’ Nevertheless, it has occurred to me to wonder whether there are any exorcists who specialise in cars. It’s just that sometimes I go to bed fearing that I will be awoken in the dark early hours by the sound of an engine gruffly calling me, and I’ll look through the front bedroom window to see a dark blue VW Golf sitting at the bottom of my garden. When I go out to investigate, it will have mysteriously disappeared.

Now I’m being silly, aren’t I? Besides, it all adds a bit of colour to an otherwise unremarkable life so forget the exorcist. But isn’t it a sure indicator of just how unremarkable a life can be when it’s capable of being coloured by a dark blue VW Golf? It is. Duly abashed.

*  *  *

I just used up the last of my marmalade so there won’t be any more marmalade sandwiches for me until I can get a new jar. The connection between this unremarkable fact and the mysterious affair outlined above should be guessable to any long term reader of my jottings who is also familiar with Michael Bond’s most famous character. (It’s in the hat, just in case you need a hint.)

On Sharing Space.

I’ve been sharing a dark cloud with somebody over the past few days. She shared mine back in the spring so she’s a bit of a brick, and she’s just suffered a horrible loss. That’s why there hasn’t been much blog activity recently.

Well, that and having my living space invaded for ten hours yesterday by some unholy racket coming up from the pub at the bottom of the lane. It’s nearly half a mile away and I had all the doors and windows shut tight, but I could still hear it right up to bloody midnight.  They were having something approximating to a beer and music festival, I’m told. Having my personal space invaded by somebody else’s choice of so-called music has a curious effect on me. My spirits plummet, my nervous system gets well overheated, and my normally impeccable ability to function practically and imaginatively just about goes off the rails. I wish I didn’t care, but I do.

But at least the bees didn’t sting me. They don’t, you know. This year has seen the genesis of two new bee hives in the stonework supporting the embankment at the back of my house. Every time I go around there a few of them come to investigate the potential menace, but I speak nicely to them and assure them that I mean them no ill will, and so far they’ve allowed me my space and resisted the probable urge to attack. And that pleases me greatly because when honey bees sting they die horribly shortly afterwards, and I wouldn’t like that at all.

They do sometimes follow me, though, when I go back around the corner of the house. I hear a slight change in the sound of their wing beats which carries the unmistakable imprecation ‘And don’t come back!’

For Those at the Edge.

There was a black family in Tesco when I was shopping on Monday. Black families are rare in Uttoxeter, and even rarer in Ashbourne. The parents were probably in their early thirties, the boy was around twelve or thirteen, and there were two younger girls. The girls were the ones I noticed first because they had their hair impeccably braided, and every fifth or sixth braid had been coloured a light copper. They looked stylish and very lovely. Somebody must have taken a lot of trouble to make them look that good.

They were blocking my route down the aisle and so I said ‘excuse me, please.’ The mother moved the kids out of the way and I walked past with a ‘thank you.’ And then she looked at me with a strange look which suggested surprise, and replied ‘you’re welcome.’ It occurred to me to wonder whether the strange look was the product of her not being used to white folks being polite to them. That would be very sad, wouldn’t it? But I don’t know. Maybe not. I hope not.

And tonight I was recalling my own childhood, and how I used to take the week’s dinner money on a Monday morning to buy five meal tickets. The children of poor families didn’t have to pay because they were entitled to free dinners courtesy of the welfare state. Their tickets were white; ours were blue. The difference in colour meant that everybody standing in line could see which kids could afford to pay for their meals, and which kids were too poor. Even at that age I detected a hint of stigma in the air. I assume they changed the system eventually, at least I hope they did.