The Shambling Underclass.

I did some banking for another entity today. Not at my bank but at another. One of those dismal places. You know. I was struck by how much it resembled a shipping container. Everything looked slapped together, as if every item in it could be moved in 30 minutes flat and not a trace left of what had gone before (good luck future archaeologists!). I has hustled by an employee as I stepped in, caught in mid-groan at the long line up. She had Tim Horton's coffee and donuts at the entrance with a huge sign that proclaimed "OUR CUSTOMERS ARE IMPORTANT!" or some such oxymoronic drivel and she offered me one.

As I viewed the snaking queue of grumpiness around me I bit my lip. Tight. I so wanted to say : "If we're that important would you stop serving coffee and open another teller window for feck's sake?" Well, "teller window" is a huge exaggeration, everything being mobile and plastic, including the tellers who were all dressed up in sparkly dresses and sweaters. Frivolous I thought, being grumpy. Sparkling bankers. And these were the men.(Kidding!)

So I get my coffee served up to me. Now I'm overloaded: I've got my purse, a grocery bag, my book in its own wee bag, my deposit bag and a coffee with a napkin and stir-stick to manoeuver. It shuts me up. I'm busy.

See? I never do physical banks. I'm all on line now so I don't have to fret and muse inside such 20th century aberrations. But some organizations. Don't. Want. To. Change. And at my age I choose my battles very carefully. So I do the shipping container shamble.

As a geezer, I remember banks as being solid. Pillared. Marble. Hushed. Vaulted ceilings. Polished brass. Obsequious dark-suited tellers. Manager cruising around. Keeping an eye. This place? I've seen better Walmarts.

I don't remember waiting back then. Certainly not in a queue of 20 on a snaking carpet with arrows. As if we're all halfwits and could turn in the wrong direction towards the doors if not guided by our betters.

So a half hour of my life goes by that I'll never get back. In a shipping container. Delicately balancing a Tim Horton's coffee. Watching myself on a video above me. As all of us queuers are.

Oh, did I say half-wits?

Birthing the Dream

Sunset from the Tigeen

If you're a regular reader you'll remember this recent post.

And when you do a start-up, you never know, do you? Well I was beside myself today when I got my first booking for the Tigeen: An American writer-in-residence who wants to spend 2 days in my wee cabin and tour the Avalon before heading off to her summer position about 400K from here.

I am so chuffed at how my friends have gathered around with suggestions, promotions and downright support and accolades about the Tigeen to anyone who will listen to them. For instance, tonight the author sister of a good friend is promoting it in a broadcast to her connections.

Now, I'm holding my horses, this may be the only booking. But hell, isn't it so very lovely when this dream, after such a long incubation, has become so very much ALIVE?

Momma in the Kitchen

Did you ever feel you were going insane? Well maybe not "going" maybe arrived would be a better qualifier. (What, no party?)

Here I was making my weekly yogurt, filling my wee jars and next thing, milk is squirting all over the kitchen, my best tee-shirt (wear an apron, you idiot, an apron), the floor, the counters, the yogurt maker, even a squirt into the sink. You'd never think milk could go this far, a wee jar. But oh yes, down the sides of the cabinet doors and on to my slippers. I just love the way Ansa skulks away when this happens. With an eye-roll: Humans? Mine can't even manage a small jar of milk without a catastrophic tsunami.

Before I wound up gibbering on the floor I spotted it, one of those perfect little holes (in the side of the glass jar towards the bottom, how did that happen? Note to self: check the jars before you pour your weekly yogurt mix into them.

So then I make the weekly gluten free bread. I would think in the old days: what an awful nuisance GF bread must be to make, acres of product, where do you get the ingredients, etc. etc.

And then I adapted my granny's bastable recipe for GF Daughter and was stunned at how simple it is. Today I made a banana-zucchini version of the old bastable, currently baking in the oven. Sugar-free, fat-free. The aroma makes up for all that lashings of milk sprayed all over the place.

And yeah, in case you ask, I did clean up. 5 dishrags later.

Little Tickles

Baltimore, West Cork by Grandgirl.

There have been a few of them lately. You know, the stuff that brings a smile to your face for a few minutes and then something else happens, and you smile again and think: boy this is adding up to a bouquet of a day when I count all the little flowers in it.

A gratitude list as some call it. Lists. I'm addicted to lists. I'd rather leave this particular list unmade and call it a bouquet that sustains me through some challenges at the moment.

I had a call from a dear blog friend today, one I've met in the flesh as well. A lovely catch-up on each other's lives.

I posted a pic-link on FB of Baltimore and their upcoming festival and felt lonely for my West Cork. And Grandgirl responds from Dublin with the exact same picture she had taken a few days ago in Baltimore.

Two more have joined my barely-jogging-walking group for this year's Tely 10..

An article I wrote on the way an elder was treated in reports over two days in our provincial newspaper is being published in the weekend edition of the very same newspaper. I am quite chuffed about this as I'd thought it would be trash-heaped by them but felt angry enough to write it. My respect for the paper has gone up several notches.

I had hoped to have an "in" with an editor at a large publishing empire through a new friend but it has fizzled out as he no longer works for them. The tickle is that this friend feels so badly now that she is moving heaven and hell to promote my novel to others in time for 2016. I have three novels ready - this one takes place over 100 years of Irish history.

Daughter has painstakingly stripped multiple layers of paint from the woodwork in one of my bedrooms, literally many hours of work. But to see the grain of the wood come to life again after many generations is so incredible.

So that's it from the Land of Tickles for the moment.

Uncertainty

I test the waters sometimes. With trusted friends. You know, reveal a bit of the inner. One has to be careful because trust is bathed in fragility for some of us.

My world was uncertain as a child. I could never trust my footing. And yes, I can trace the beginning of it to here.. In untangling my life with the aid of a good therapist, years ago, I got to understand the whys of my personal quirks but corrective measures? They ebb and flow, with the moods, with the atmosphere, with the health.

I never quite trust. And I question did I ever? I hold back. Waiting for a chasm of indifference to yawn up in front of me. Nothing is forever. Those good feelings of today can vanish with the crack of dawn tomorrow. Ones I love so desperately and completely can vanish, can shun, can evaporate without a wave of farewell or a wisp of explanation for their frigidity.

And I confess to surprise and shock when people around me show me a measure of love and respect I feel unearned. I want to push them, to test them, to prove to myself I was never worth the fine feelings they exhibited towards me to begin with.

It is said a life unexamined is not worth living. I concur. Even though the answers can be ephemeral. How do we know what goes on inside another's head? Are they uncertain too? Not that they'd ever admit it. Not that I would. Unless clothed in anonymity.

But some days, some days, I would give anything to feel my footsteps ring firm on solid ground.

Are we all barking mad?

I'd say we are. Truly.

My town's annual cleanup day was today. A couple of miles of coast and both sides of the main road and a few side roads.

The turn out was great. About 30 of us from a town of about 150+. Those who were gone away for the weekend cleaned up stretches of the road during the past week. The town is fortunate in that the people who care, really care.

But you guys! The garbage collected! We lost count. Picture above is of about 30% of what we collected. We figured close to 100 bags, 3 truckloads to the dump.

I myself collected 3 full bags.

About 90% of it plastic: Tubs, bags, bottles, floats, fishing net pieces, wrappers.

Surely it's about time we stopped using plastic? And only used recyclable or cloth grocery bags (I do) and drank water from the tap (I do)and filled our own bottles (I do) if we insist on walking around like big babies with a bottle to our lips all the time. (Gee, our ancestors worked hard in the fields or on the water or in mines and didn't suck off bottles all day long, think about it.)

We need serious anti-disposable plastic laws in place. I'm writing an article for next weekend's paper on this.

I live on an island.

We are drowning in plastic. I can't bear thinking about the birds, fish and animals who choke on this stuff every day from the plastic we don't even see.

Stop it already.

And on the 8th Day...

This is a photo that Daughter took up at the Tigeen the other day, the bay reflected on the French doors. I love it.

This is the 8th day of a cold I suspected was sourced somewhere in Ontario and gifted to me by Daughter who returned from there.

I was doing fine with it, relieved it hadn't turned into a bronchial nightmare like times past. I had poor lungs as a child, double pneumonia and pleurisy by the age of 10 and heat treatments in the hospital for about a year afterwards. I can still smell that machine, odd that, and I can't find any information on it on a Google search. It was a night out for my mother and me. Every Wednesday night. And we would walk from the hospital to a distant bus-stop afterwards as the fare was cheaper. Today, I can't imagine my father coping alone with the children at home, the youngest about a year old.

It's funny how one can think of something far off in the past and it opens up a floodgate of memories. My mother would always buy me a chocolate bar afterwards - I would take forever to choose it in the newsagent's across from the hospital - for being a "good girl" and lying so still on my stomach under the lamps. I imagine my lungs were being dried. I must have been a wheezy child but I have no recollection of that.

And here I am today, 8 days into this nasty bug and feeling worse than the last 7 days. I slept most of the day, coughed and hacked so much I got a rare headache and yes, I'm cranky. I have too much to do to be this sidetracked by my body.

What was that again? Oh yeah, it's telling me to slow down.

Aye, aye, ma'am.

A touch of the excitement.

View from the deck of the Tigeen* today.

I don't know how many businesses I've been involved in/owned-operated/partnered in but I could offer you a partial list:

Catering company
Accounting Tax Service/Bookkeeping company
Answering Service
Boarding House
Landlord

And today, with the phenomenal help of Daughter who cracks that whip (quite lovingly), I launched another. Yes, The Tigeen is finally ready for rent. Well, just about ready.

We cleaned up there. We lit the wood stove. We ran the vacuum cleaner off the solar panel electricity and also the wee fridge and the lights. And she held fast. And the power didn't run out. We hung out the quilts and pillows in the sun. She is gorgeous. She has no environmental footprint. Whatsoever. Rain water from the barrel. Composting toilet.

Loft bed with skylight - you should see the stars at night as you lie on this bed!

It will be of particular interest to writers and artists who crave solitude and beauty as it overlooks the entire bay and is nestled high above the trees. You can look down on eagles and grackles and blue jays flying around.

I absolutely adore this wee place, so compact and peaceful and just extraordinary.

It was a long held dream, this beautiful Tigeen, and I so loved designing every small component of it. It's like she lived in me for a very long time and finally was born.

Now I'll see if others appreciate it the way I do.

Woodstove in the Tigeen.

*little house in Irish.

Etiquette - Blog and Otherwise.

I stopped responding to comments. Is this good blog etiquette? I don't know. Some of the blogs I love don't ever respond to their commenters. Some respond directly via personal emails while others are meticulous about responding to each and every comment. I was. But I find that mentally I've moved on from those past posts lately. I don't want to put my head back there, you know? Do you think that's rude?

A former fiancé died. I think I mentioned him before. A question about that too. I found his daughter had posted pics of him in the few months before his death. (I don't know her). Memory-shaking photos in showing his deterioration. And in my decluttering here I found some nice photos of him. His daughter, I would imagine, has no inkling of who I am. Would it be alright, d'you think, to send her on pics of her dad in the peak of his youth, his joie, his handsomeness from a former "friend". I don't know how else to classify myself.

My mother was a stickler for etiquette. She said it was all about respect. Everybody was more at ease when they knew the proper social rules. That way there would be no nasty surprises or ugly sounds or smells. One of her rules was you never arrived as a guest in a place with your arms the same length, even if it was just an apple or a facecloth or a bun to honour the host. I've passed this on to my daughters. I think of her this weekend as it is Canadian Mother's Day. I think of her every day of course but more so on anniversaries and days of significance.

Picture above is of me at 11 months, dying to launch myself off her lap and on to bigger things. She encouraged me in that and was so supportive of all my endeavours.

Thank you dearest Mum, your voice often echoes in my head.

Out With the Old

A few of us bloggers are comparing notes on tossing out, cleaning up, zenning our spaces. Must be something to do with the configuration of the stars at the moment you'd think.

I've downsized quite a few times now so apart from books and movies I try not to clutter up too much.

I'm going through boxes of photos and documents and postcards and love notes and thank you letters and am becoming quite ruthless.

It's not an easy job. And quite sad too looking at now-dead faces or the once convivial lineups of family members now shunning me. Where once there was love, etc. And the portraits I took of them - should I toss in the recycling bin? I can barely stand to look at them as it is, for it's like a dagger piercing my heart. Why torture myself? Toss. Move on. They have.

I'm a tough old elder. I can do this.

Now that feels better...or does it?

Sustaining Friendships.

I left quite a few friends behind me in Ontario when I moved here. And yesterday was some sort of record day in my life because three of them called and thanks to my Bluetooth, I can wander around and talk for hours.

These particular friends never demand anything of me so it is simply warmth and love and connection in our conversations.

I am often surprised at the friends I do have who always seem to want something and only call when this agenda is on their minds. I find my barriers go up, I keep waiting for the axe to fall in the conversation. They need a reason to call perhaps and can't seem to make a call of care, concern or compassion without lurking behind a request for me to do something for them.

Apart from business calls, I don't think I've ever requested anything of a friend apart from the pleasure of their company and the art of their conversation. I may be wrong in this but I do hope not.

And the reaching out of these three yesterday? I hadn't realized how very much they mean to me.

It was lovely knitting our stories together yet again, and completing another piece of the tapestry together. And not losing the rhythm of each others' years. As that can happen. And it is so sad.

And making plans of meeting in the realz before too long.

And yes, I do tell them I love them.

Thank you my darlings - Pad, Linda, Dianne (and not forgetting Claire from last weekend).

Suitable

I'm amazed I'm not more effed up than I am. Or maybe I am and nobody's telling me.

I'll tell you one reason why. Someone used the word "suitable" the other day about a wood floor and its suitability for a large space.

And as such light word droppings can sometimes do to me to me, it set me to drifting off. On such occasions, I'm sure my vacant look can be bothersome. My mind takes off and I vanish for a while. The lights are on and nobody's home in today's parlance.

For the word "suitable" took me right back. It was one of my father's favourite words. But not in a good way. Oh no.

It was his way of terminating my friendships, desires or intentions.

"Oh, she's not suitable," he would say to me irritably, upon meeting a friend of mine,"You're forbidden to see her again".

I should mention here that my family were barely middle class with no great aspirations of grandeur at all.

"But why dad?" I was always in terror of making him mad. His rages were legendary and the man hated to be challenged.

"Just not suitable, that's all."

One could never be saucy and ask suitable for what. The backdoor to my mother, his translator, was inevitably used when Dad was not around.

It would usually be a flimsy reason for the unsuitability. Like the following:

1. The father drank
2. She/he ran with a rough crowd.
3. The family were "blackguards" - one of his favourite words.
4. They voted Fine Gael
5. They were protestant.
6. They were Jewish and didn't care about the One True God. Or Jesus and his Mother.
7. They didn't believe in education.
8. The father committed suicide.
8. An aunt was an actress.

Doesn't it all sound so 18th century-ish?

I am still best friends with an unsuitable since First Class (aged 6) in the national school I attended.

Why was she not suitable?

Her father owned and raced greyhounds and would take his daughter and myself to the pub on a Sunday afternoon and feed us Tanoras and Taytos.

We had to sneak around behind Dad's back for years and years and was he pissed off - she was a bridesmaid at my wedding!

Oh, the stories I could tell you about my Irish Cacklick childhood!

Death

Much talk about death lately in the stuff I read and on the airwaves.

On the radio coming home last night, there was a most interesting chat about Death Cafes. I wouldn't mind hosting one. Seriously. So very many people are squeamish about the grim reaper. But out here on the Edge? It would be a further notation on my "she's nuts, isn't she?" file.

What carries most people through the idea of their own death is the thought of the wonderful afterlife awaiting them surrounded by those beloveds (what about the behateds?) gone before them, clearing a space on the sofa so to speak.

What would you do all day, I ask them.

Praise God, or some such form of an answer comes back at me.

Privately, I think: what an incredibly boring existence that would be.

I mean, I imagine meeting my mother in the afterlife. What on earth would we talk about? She'd know everything wouldn't she, having observed all and sundry, the bad and the good and the pitiful, in the 45 years since she left us.

"Mum, will I tell you about my play?"

"Oh my Pet I saw it all, it was great and your thought processes to get there were very interesting too."

Long Pause.

"You'd have liked your great-granddaughter, Mum."

"Oh, darling, I watch her all the time, look, come sit down by me and we'll watch her together."

Long Pause.

I mean seriously now, wouldn't you rather watch paint dry? Except I'm damn sure there's no paint in heaven.

And the praise God bit?

Wouldn't you think She'd have enough of that nonsense? You know hymns 'n psalms 'n stuff echoing unendingly 24/7 at Her from down here below already.

I mean I can see Her now. clutching Her eardrums, closing Her eyes, shouting at the billions of dead, now risen, at Her feet:

"For feck's sake, would you all get a bloody life?"

Let Me Tell You About my Bunion.

PS I don't have bunions. And the illustration reflects the graphic nature of the medical conditions shared with me.

What is the secret of good conversation? I was really driven to question this today. I know there are certain so-called “rules”. You know, ask questions, listen to the answers, try not to stick your own oar in the waters all the time. Evaluate your responses, be thoughtful. Really hear the other person.

I put this to practice today. We had our monthly book club meet and Elsie, a person I don't know very well, asked me to give her a ride home. We had already engaged a little in the kitchen where we were plattering the lunch. She'd asked me if I were going to Ireland this year and barely waited for my answer before launching into all the (medical) reasons she couldn't go there this year, this being the 10th year in a row she couldn't go there. A blow by blow accounting of 10 years of medical history. And yes it was savage and awful. But hey, behind her now. She survived. Maybe it is just me and maybe I'm being harsh, but lawdy, everyone I meet lately launches into med-speak with me, from their hangnails to their bowel movements, from their meds to their tumours. And their tests, their scans, their MRIs, their ultrasounds. It can get extremely wearying. Especially when the person is standing in front of me, alive, vertical and in motion. And it's all behind them now. It's history.

Maybe I'm lucky with my health and if it fails maybe I will grab you by the lapel or blog-wrestle you to the ground and blister on (and on) about it too. But it is completely boring. It would be completely boring even if you were a beloved family member/friend.

Don't get me wrong. If you are in hospital or need any kind of assistance to get to one of your appointments, hospital tests, anything, I'm there in a heart beat. Lean on me. Or if you are currently ill. One of my friends is and I listen intently to the symptoms and the medical assistance she is getting. I love her. It is important.

But for Dog's sake – leave the history of every health travail in your private journal once you are well again.

And that ride home with Elsie? More about her gall bladder than I would ever need to know - even about my own. This was after she asked one question about what road races were coming up for me and before I even mentioned the first one she launched into the 99 reasons she couldn't do it. All of them medical. All of them historical.

Needy. Yeah, I know. And I don't lack compassion. But shyte, at some point in 60+ years on the planet there should be a smidgen of growth, of self-awareness, of interest in others. Especially if you've shown a curiosity in the greater world by joining a book-club?

So Young

There was a time when I would be flattered. Not anymore.

I was leaving an older friend's house today. I dropped off something and stayed a while to chat. She gets lonely. She has kidney disease, genetic. Nothing anybody can do even though her sons offered their kidneys years ago. A transplant wouldn't help.

I was out the door, heading down her path when I overheard her say loudly to another friend:

"My gawd, she looks so young, are you sure she's as old as she says she is?"

My awareness of ageism is at a high level. I see it everywhere, even coming from other elders with their "cute" posts on FB, you know the ones: as if seniors are all one brick short of a load, one bulb short of a lighthouse. Some are more offensive than others and poke fun at elders' sexuality, teeth, weight, forgetfulness, clothing, incontinence. You name it. When I address this with them and say: put an aboriginal in place of that elder, put a negro there in that cartoon or a gay person. See how unfunny it is now?

Ah, they say, we can poke fun at ourselves, can't we?

Erm, no, it's not funny. All these "innocent" little jokes and innuendoes and othering leads to abuse. It's called discrimination. And ageism. You're telling the whole world out there that all elders are feeble, simple and stupid and can't take care of themselves. And those "funny" jokes reinforce that perception. Aging is to be feared. Anti-aging is an enormous industry - Botox, Viagra, hair transplants, teeth transplants, skin abrasions, liposuction, pills, cosmetics.

And if you'd done all the research I've done on elder abuse, you would GET it. It starts with the "Depends" jokes and then moves down the hill to all elders are smelly and stupid and are one big joke - giving those who "care" for them the right to take over their lives, their possessions, their bank accounts, etc., and they'd be too stunned to notice.

So no, I am not flattered when others call me "young" for my age or OMG I'm jogging, or I'm writing, or meeting friends who are at the other end of the age spectrum for dinner or planning new adventures.

This is what an elder looks like and behaves like.

A Surprise in Every Day.

Someone said this to me a long time ago: To watch out for those lovely wee surprises as one always falls into every day and we can miss it if we're not aware.

I know when the Black Dog visits it's hard to recognise these little drop-ins. But today? I was very half-hearted about my office job. I wanted to keep editing (and editing) this short story for a competition. The deadline is tomorrow. But everything went really well in the office in the morning and I worked on the story in the afternoon and then the phone went and this trip to the Ould Sod fell into my lap. A friend of a friend had changed his mind about going and was giving away the ticket for just about 1/2 price.

You know me and YES.

Make that a HELL YES.

And I'll keep my eyes open for tomorrow's one.

Nostalgique A Deux

This was an ad that appeared in the paper this past weekend. Click to embiggen.

I know. Hard to believe in this day and age. I also love the absence of phone number, address and website.

As if everyone should know where they are.

I might just head myself off and do some fishing with their rod and their bait.

After my breakfast, of course.

who knew there was so much fun to be had for a total of $10?

Nostalgique

My front garden, at sunset

Well, it isn't really a word used by us English speakers, is it? But I do like the sound of it.

I think back to the days in Ontario when I knew a few female alcoholics and when they introduced themselves thusly: "Je suis un alcoolique", I would think to myself: that sounds so much more fun, so much more glamorous, so much more carefree than "alcoholic".

A couple of web friends have kicked the bucket. One out of Limerick who died in January (of a brief but unremitting cancer) but my FB feed has a mind/agenda of its own. Posts normally at the top of my lists get subsumed by the bots at whim to the nether regions. This is what happened to my friend John's obit news. He was one of Ireland's foremost atheists, a never ending battler for women's rights, a wit, an artist of some renown and a scholar and a gentleman. We'd had some pleasant exchanges over the years. Some Irishmen just make me proud. He was one of them.

Mike I'd followed for many years due to his online magazine, his documentaries and a radio show. He ruminated on many topics - ranging from oil as a finite resource and the underlying conspiracies of corporate interests in political affairs. I had been an admirer of his for about 13 years and befriended him in his transition to FB. Since he has died - by his own hand - some troubling facts have come to light in regard to his declared sobriety (he wasn't), a sexual harassment charge, and his extreme paranoia resulting in a self-inflicted gunshot wound when he'd wrapped up his last radio show. So my opinion of Mike, and now his political slants, have taken a jolt.

Sometimes I do wax nostalgic for simpler times. But were they ever simple? I look at the pictures of Old Cork, a new group on FB that has brought such richness of historical experience to my home city via these thousands of old photos and movies. Many now vanished train stations and trams, unsullied strands, majestic ballrooms, shoppers in hooped skirts, all looking innocent and almost childlike. But I also remember the slums of Cork, now thankfully no more, where lonely old women ate meagre food on tin plates with the damp running down the walls. As "Children of Mary" in secondary school, we would have to visit these old people in their tenement rooms and bring food and clothing to them.

At times like these, I need to step out of Nostalgique, a fine place to visit for sure, and pour myself a stiff cup of reality laced with a hit of cynicism.

Back to normal, in other words.

Our Lovely Humanity

It's never the perfect dinner parties I remember. You know, where everything is just so. Everything matching, flowers at attention, napkins crisp and clean and even, linen spotless, best silver aligned.

No. it's the wee touches of carelessness. Something the host/hostess forgot to put away or got thrown in a corner to be dealt with later just when the oven beeped.

I am included in these family get-togethers at friends of mine. All festive occasions. Between this couple they have 13 siblings plus their partners (or not), plus cousins and in-laws. I find it hard to talk about it without crying. Happy tears I should add as this huge family reminds me so much of my own when we all pile in together. And by now I'm like this stray sister as they tease me and ball-hop me to a huge degree. Acceptance.

And the food is awesome, this afternoon and into the evening it was all kinds of fish. Fresh crab, a clam chowder that would make you groan in pleasure, fresh cod, brewis, fish cakes and fresh baked rolls. And scrunchions. I don't eat desserts by choice but the selection would make you weep. Layered trifle in a huge bowl, 7 cup pudding with rum sauce, this fancy cinnamon roll that comes out like a swiss roll. And enough to feed hundreds. And masses of tulips and daffodils in jugs and vases everywhere.

The craic was 90, as my people say. But it was when I was in the bathroom that I smiled and felt so touched. We've all had these little slips, these forgetfullnesses. Like leaving the big tube of haemorrhoid cream beside the sink. I'll admit to walking around my own dining room serving guests with a trail of toilet paper floating behind me.

And them? Neatly arranged on three hooks at the back of their bathroom door were his underpants, her knickers and her bra.

Happy season of renewal and rebirth and re-invigoration to you all.

Charging Off

I was stunned when I got here today and realized I hadn't posted one single word in over a week. Most unlike me. Which means I haven't read any other blogs either.

I hasten to amend the situation.

Yes, I have been charging off in a different direction. More on that later. I took a huge chance. I won't throw a lot of bad cess on it by talking about it. Nothing may come of it and I won't look foolish in front of the lot of you. You know how that can be. No? It must be just me then.

Other than that, family stuff, interesting other projects on the go, weather is balmy, over 20C today so everyone is charging off and getting caught up with friends, etc., like there's no tomorrow. Moods have lightened. Jackets have been peeled off and boots thrown in the corner.

And the birds, oh the birds. Chirping, cooing, flying and floating. They're everywhere.

And the bay? Just look at it!