Two Ladies and a Coincidence.

For the purpose of having something to stick up on the blog tonight I thought I’d note an interesting coincidence.

During the early years of blogging I attracted a number of people who became regular correspondents. I came to feel a special bond with some of those people, and I’m prepared to speculate that I even grew to love them. Two of the outstanding examples of that rarefied ilk were Mistress Madeline of the USA (aka the Venerable Borg) and the Priestess from Australia (more latterly domiciled in Sweden and the UK.) Both received many mentions on the blog down the years.

They meant different things to me, as you might expect. I always thought of Mistress M as my kid sister who was cleverer than me. She came bearing bucketsful of erudition, could juggle complex psychological equations while poring over knitting patterns, and had a marvellously dry sense of humour which was splendidly uplifting at times.

The Priestess was more of an honoured travelling companion. She had an expansive breadth of vision coupled with a willingness to take risks, lacked any hint of vindictiveness or triumphalism, and led me firmly – but with never a hint of didacticism – into considering different ways of looking at life. That’s a rare feature in my experience.

So what’s the coincidence? Well, I did a bit of checking recently and discovered that today – 28^th September – is exactly a year since my last correspondence with the Priestess, and exactly two years since my last correspondence with the Venerable Borg. (And they were both Geminis, by the way.) Is there something special about 28^th September, I wonder?

And am I to believe, I ask myself, that there really is no such thing as a coincidence? I don’t know the answer to that one, but what I do know is this: If I’m to be permitted the honour of indulging in the practice of spectral manifestation after I’ve gone over the cataract, I will most certainly haunt these two special ladies. (Nicely, of course.) I have little doubt that Mistress M will dismiss my presence as nothing more than a digestive disturbance brought on by an underdone piece of potato (and will probably consult Dickens to ensure that it was potato to which he referred and not any other troublesome vegetable) and will then continue with her knitting, while the Priestess will smile and remark ‘Oh it’s you, is it? What kept you?’ And then life and death will suddenly feel like comfortable bedfellows.

On Life and the Undertaker's Den.

I took the plunge and paid for my funeral plan today, so now there’s a big hole in the hull of my bank account. No doubt the ship will sail on regardless to whatever its final destination is.

(Not that there’s any such thing as a bank account, of course. It’s just a theoretical concept to add credence to the illusory notion that money is real. But let’s pass on that one for now.)

What was much more interesting about my trip to the funeral parlour (I was in there for 1½ hours, would you believe – mostly going over things I already knew with a woman called Jo whose laptop was maddeningly slow. Do I feel a ditty coming on here? Having been regaled with the story of old Joe lost in the snow as a child, I come to the other end of my life and encounter young Jo whose laptop is slow. This really must be a message from the universe. Mustn’t it?) was meeting one of the undertakers.

He assured me that after I shuffle off this mortal coil I will be taken very good care off and treated with the utmost respect. He declined to accept my assertion that once I lay this body down I won’t be in it any more, so it doesn’t really matter. And when I suggested that being an undertaker seemed a somewhat strange occupation, he declined to accept that as well. He said he couldn’t think of a more satisfying way to spend his life than dealing with dead bodies and bereaved people. I supposed that he was the sort of person to place compassion above practical considerations and was happy to accept his point of view (although I did mention that I was happier taking photographs of trees.) Come to think of it, I also asked whether the notion of ‘utmost respect’ included me being bowed to because I’ve never been bowed to before. ‘Oh yes,’ I was assured. ‘We always bow to the deceased even in the case of a direct cremation.’ (That’s where you don’t waste money on a fancy funeral service where everybody dutifully sings Abide with Me while thinking of the free buffet to come.)

So that was today’s big adventure, apart from being stared at by several young women who then did a double take. I wondered whether spending 1½ hours in a funeral parlour has some deleterious effect on one’s skin tone. ‘Maybe it’s vapour from the embalming fluid,’ I thought. But probably not. And then I remembered meeting Lucy, the ex-dental nurse, shortly after my cancer operation six years ago. She promised to teach me the yoga position called the ‘corpse pose’ while I was still young enough to be able to do it. And I’ve never seen her since. Life eh? Never works out.

Shakira's Mysterious Magic.

Earlier this evening I was possessed of an urgent desire to watch the official video of Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie again. Heaven knows why, but possessed I was and so watch it I did.

Ye gods and little fishes!

The lyrics; the dark Latino setting; the sinuous movement; the witchy eyes; the voice (which her high school music teacher said sounded like a goat – some goat.) And all finished off by the magic Shakira smile. Shakira’s smile is more than just a smile, you see, much more. It’s a light source.

I’m not the sort of person who is supposed to like Shakira, you know. My daughter even joked about it once. And I have no interest whatsoever in any of the other modern lady pop nightingales. Taylor Swift and her ilk might as well be checkout operators in Tesco for all the interest I have in them.

But Shakira exudes that certain something which has no name, but shatters the shell, grabs hold of something inside, and refuses to let go.

I wonder whether that’s what a crush is. And at my age, too. Shameful.

(And why am I suddenly writing again? Is it Mercury’s birthday or something?)

On Writing and Reality.

Last night I read a chapter of my new novel, Kafka on the Shore, in which a somewhat surreal character commits an act of extreme cruelty on several cats. I thought of skipping that chapter when it became apparent that this was going to happen because there’s enough darkness in this world as it is and I really didn’t want to accept any more by way of recreation.

I decided I shouldn’t. It’s a very good novel containing a selection of mysteries and I felt that to skip a chapter would leave the reading of it forever unfinished. And then there’s the fact that the very best of novels contain something which can be taken as a lesson, and I feel this one might prove to be no exception. And so I read the chapter.

On later reflection I realised that I could never have written something like that myself. I said in an earlier post that I lived my stories when I was writing them, and I could never have walked a road which involved the torture of animals. I also said that I assumed other writers felt the same way, and that made me question the nature and character of Mr Murakami, the writer of Kafka. Presumably, the same is not true of him. It would appear that he is the sort to remain dispassionate and accept that his fiction is just fiction and not be taken personally. On the other hand, maybe he did suffer through the writing of it, but felt he had to do so anyway in order to say what he needed to say.

And that reminded me of the story of Gustav Mahler who felt reluctant to write his song cycle, Kindertotenlieder (dirges for children), because he was superstitious and feared that it might provoke disastrous consequences. He did so anyway and his own two children were drowned soon afterwards. It’s said that he suffered badly, obviously from the loss but also his sense of guilt, for the rest of his life.

I asked the question on this blog many years ago: when a person puts pen to paper and creates a story – be it in prose, poetry, or musical form – are they creating some kind of subtle reality which will affect their consciousness and maybe even their worldly affairs? I still don’t know the answer to that and I doubt I ever shall. That’s because I don’t know what reality is, but I do strongly suspect that the reality in which we appear to exist and to which we appear to relate is but the tip of an iceberg. The rest is hidden to mortal eyes and senses, but we need to exercise caution if we’re not to emulate the Titanic.

The Decimation of the Squirrels.

There’s something odd and rather dark going on with the squirrels in the Shire.

I normally expect to see no more than one or two a year dead on the roads in these parts, and sometimes none at all. And yet there have been several this summer alone. And then there was the one I wrote about yesterday close to the tree where a squirrel clucked at me. Today I was coming back from Ashbourne and, just as I approached the top of my lane, two of them ran separately across the road in front of my car and very nearly added to the tally. I had to hit the brakes hard to avoid one of them. And guess what I found when I went for a short evening walk: a squirrel dead on the road right outside my garden.

What on earth is going on with the squirrels in these parts? Is this another sign from the universe and am I supposed to take some meaning from it? If so, what? Always the problem.

A Minor Bereavement.

Remember the clucking squirrel I wrote about on Sunday? Well, today my walk took me past the entrance to the same wood, and lying at the roadside – a mere thirty feet from the clucking incident – was a dead squirrel, presumably a road kill.

It was a poignant sight because, although I have no way of knowing whether it was the same squirrel, when an animal talks to you like that and in such a singular manner, it becomes personal.

Rueing a Failure.

Having rushed about all morning and done some shopping in Uttoxeter, I finally took a rest sitting on a stack of plastic bags containing garden peat outside a DIY store. I started to roll a cigarette when a thin and slightly dishevelled young man walked past, and then walked back to me. ‘Can I buy a roll up off you?’ he asked. I gave him the one I’d filled with tobacco but hadn’t licked yet. He held out a hand containing a few meagre coins and asked ‘How much?’ I declined payment of course, and he walked away finishing the rolling of the cigarette.

I thought about it later and realised that I’d failed miserably. What I should have given him was the spare pack of tobacco I keep in my backpack. He had that lean and hungry look suggestive of a difficult start in life, and it occurs to me now that he probably wasn’t habituated to generosity. Such an act might have thrown a switch in his consciousness and changed – even if ever so slightly – his perception of the world and its harshness. He might even have walked a better road and been a better, more positive person.

Then again, he might not. I might be completely wrong about him and his situation. And I’m not so naïve as to presume that one unexpected gift is likely to make a great deal of difference to the way a person sees the world.

But you never know, do you? A 50g pack of rolling tobacco costs around £38 at the moment, and there was a time, when I was approaching my own down and out stage, when £38 would have seemed like a very great deal of money. But my own life has changed and now I can afford it, so it might have been worth the try.

For what else can one little person like me do to make some sort of difference to the human condition? I can’t stop the suffering of ordinary people in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine, or any of the other places where despots rain down random death and disablement on the innocent. But if I have the chance to make one small difference to one person’s life, I think I should take it without a second thought. Maybe I’ll get another chance on another day.

The Clucking Squirrel Story.

I was standing by the gate to the Harry Potter wood this morning when I heard what sounded like a chicken clucking. I happen to know the woman who lives over the back of that wood and I know she has chickens, so I thought it unremarkable that one them might have gone walkabout. Until, that is, I realised that the sound was coming from up in the trees, and I don’t think there’s a chicken alive which would be capable of flying into a tree.

And so I searched for the source of the mystery and discovered that it was a grey squirrel, watching me intently and apparently speaking to me in the language of chickens. OK, now I’m being a little fanciful, but the fact of the matter is this:

I’ve lived much of my life in the countryside and have encountered very many grey squirrels, but I’ve never heard one vocalising before. I didn’t think they could. I lived for a short time near a beech wood in Northumberland which contained a rare colony of native red squirrels, and they often used to chatter when I walked through it. But it was a sharper sound – more of a clicking than a clucking. And now I know I’ve been wrong all these years.

I told Mel the story and she was disappointed. She said it would have been far more interesting if the source of the sound really had been a chicken because then it would have indicated that I’d crossed into a parallel dimension, one in which chickens are much better flyers. And I suppose she has a point.

Since then, however, I’ve thought of another explanation. Let's suppose that chickens have been fooling us all along and they really can fly up into trees. And suppose they’re good friends with the grey squirrels and together conspired to play a trick on this dumb human who’s completely useless when it comes to climbing or flying into trees.

‘I’ll hide so he can’t see me, and then I’ll start to cluck,’ says the chicken. ‘You stand on a branch where he can’t fail to see you and open and close your mouth.’

‘Good idea,’ says the squirrel. ‘These humans think they’re God’s gift to planet earth and we don’t matter. That should set ‘em thinking.’

But probably not.

The Noise, the Noise.

We’re currently experiencing the third electrical storm of the day in my part of the UK. The first was distant and dry, the second was right overhead and brought dark skies and torrential rain (some of which found its way into my house as torrential rain usually does), and the one we’re getting now is close with light rain.

This is the first time I ever remember having three electrical storms in one day. To my recollection, such events used to happen two or three times a year, usually after a hot, sultry spell of weather in high summer. Now they’re happening far more often and in all seasons. They’re also lasting longer. The present one started 2½ hours ago and is showing no signs of abating yet. They mostly used to last around three quarters of an hour to an hour maximum.

No doubt this is all due to climate change, and it’s a worry for the future because I’m wondering how long it will be before we’re treated to our first genuine hurricane. We often get the tail end of Atlantic hurricanes here on the north-west fringes of Europe, but they’ve always lost some of their energy by the time they get here and been downgraded to named storms. They can still be pretty wild, but not on the scale experienced by the Caribbean and the east coast of North America. And when they do start to arrive I can see them causing unprecedented problems because people, structures, and systems are generally not prepared for what they’re not used to getting.

*  *  *

Oddly, today has been somewhat characterised by loud noise. I was woken out of a deep slumber this morning by an almighty racket going on outside, and assumed the neighbours were having some major work done. It turned out to be the farmer come to cut my boundary hedge with his trusty McConnell hedge trimmer. (And McConnell hedge trimmers are very loud beasts indeed.)

In all the years he’s been cutting my hedges, he’s never started at the top of the garden close to the house before. He’s always started at the bottom of the garden. And his schedule has always meant that he’s arrived at my property late on a Saturday afternoon, not first thing in the morning. See what I mean about not being prepared for what you’re not used to getting?

But he did a very good job so I didn’t complain.

When Familiarity Breeds Content.

In order to assess how sociable I am with regard to the good burghers of the Shire, I did a head count tonight of the people whose names I know. Statistics follow:

The population of the Shire at the 2021 census was 304. I’ve only lived here for eighteen years and already I know the names of 8 men and 7 women. That’s 4.9%, which I think is pretty impressive. And that’s not counting the 6 dogs and 3 horses. I could list them if you’d like me to, but you probably wouldn’t so I won’t bother.

The thing is, you see, people in these parts expect you to know everybody. I’ve said before that it never ceases to surprise me so that so many people know my name when I’ve never told it to them, and I don’t know theirs – which can be a little awkward at times. People say things to me like:

‘I was just saying to Albert Grimsdyke the other day… You know Albert I assume.’

‘Erm… no.’

‘Yes you do – farms the land next to Robinson down by the river.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Drives a red Massey-Ferguson tractor.’

‘Oh, that Albert Grimsdyke. Got you now.’ (Which I haven’t, of course.)

Tonight I was blessed with an encounter – Catherine (one of the 7 women) and little Nell (one of the 6 dogs.) Two familiar names in the space of one unforeseen circumstance. Always a delight and a real red letter day.