Wasteland

It pains me to report to you my findings: There are many snakes in our individual paradises but I have identified a corker in mine. An absolute stinker. One I didn’t think possible but then a surprise will spring at you with no regard to your happiness. A bit like the wind carrying off your hat into a distance, never to be retrieved.

In case you wonder why my font has NOT gone large: Don’t. It’s me who is going blind. Not you. And particularly not you, Lorna.

So what’s YOUR snake, the one that spoils some of your enjoyment of life? If you find this question too personal and intimate to answer in public please do indulge me in private. As most of you, and I, know, to my cost: Nothing will go far or further with me.

And it’s only Monday. By Saturday we’ll be roasting in a slow cooker. Falling off the bone.

Hugs and kisses, as ever yours in your hour of no need,

U

Mopping up

Before you read this make sure you have some tissues or a freshly starched and absorbent handkerchief ready. For your tears, not mine. I can look after my own waterfalls.

So whatever you do, don’t say a kind word to me. Please. A kind word will, currently, have me in floods. Which, no doubt, is most welcome by our local water company replenishing its supplies but not so good for you. Keep it short and crisp.

As an aside: Have come to conclusion that ‘a shoulder’ is the most useful part of anyone’s body. Argue with that if you must: I could do with a heated discussion. Or proof to the contrary.

U

New horizons

One of the papers asks whether you are a “trend refusenik”.

If I am – fine. Bloody well hope so. By design – and on purpose.

Trends leave me cold. So, no I have never shopped in ‘Baby Gap’. I have never been a ‘member of a  book group’ (I find that thought depressing). I have never ‘been on a diet’. I have never ‘owned a product made by Apple’ (which reflects more on me and my funds than Apple). I have never been ‘on Facebook’ (where do people get the time from – not to mention Twitter). I never use ‘text speak’, mainly because it takes me longer to work out abbreviations than just going the traditional spelling route. I have never ‘bought anything from Starbucks’, partly because I don’t drink coffee and even when I do their combos are too complicated for me. Bringing me out in a fluster of choice paralysis. Neither have I ever worn Uggs. Though I spied one pair which just about passes muster, is quite elegant and people would be pushed to recognize it as an Ugg.

My score being that I am asked to count how many friends I have. How that is related to the number of cans of tinned food on my shelf is beyond me. I do have a jar of anchovies (in olive oil). Please do feel free to squeeze in there. I won’t mash you to a pulp. Just bring a tin of tomatoes and some penne and we’ll talk whilst I make a divine pasta sauce.

U

PS I understand that Burgundy has lost currency this autumn. Cheers.

Shortcut

Don’t faint: I am in love.

With myself.

No empty threats

Right Sweethearts: It Sunday afternoon 1444 hrs. I am going into a windswept tunnel. With a candle. Wish me luck. Most importantly: Please do distract me as best you can. Think of yourself as the sponge to someone drowning. To mop up surplus water. OH MY GOD: The moment I jump into action I frighten myself.  This is going to be so awful. Anyway, mustn’t postpone the evil moment. The Angel, my loss adjuster, has high hopes of me and is, unfortunately, on watch this afternoon.

Quivering and yours,

U

There is pain and there is pain

Members of a blogging consortium (they write on the same subject every Friday) have been expounding on the subject of “Pain” today. The funniest that of Paul, yes, of Blackwatertown fame, who took his ‘pain’ to Paris. And devoured it.

I don’t do pain. I never ever even have so much as a headache. Though had three mind crushing migraines (apparently of the male varierty – cluster front brain) when in my twenties. Obviously there is toothache. Yes, toothache. Toothache is amazing. I remember the first time: I must have been about 11. Naturally, it was Saturday morning when it flared up. Never was I more grateful to my father than when he found me a dentist two hours later who relieved me of my first molar. Even him pulling it, hearing the crunch of the roots reluctant to let go was utter bliss. Then I bled. But all was good again. I adore dentists.

Another useless pain when, a couple of years ago, they tried to reset my broken arm manually. Dear dog in heaven. I fucking hit the roof. It was something else. Then they decided it wasn’t going to work. And they needed to operate next morning. So they put me to bed and gave me morphine. Oh the bliss, Sweethearts. If ever I am going to be given a choice of drug addiction – morphine it will be. The Angel phoned the ward every so often throughout the night to see how I was and one of his observations, in wonderment: “The sister kept saying: Your mother is very content. Content?? How can you have been content?” I was. Content. Very. Blissed out. Even more if they hadn’t come round every half hour to take my blood pressure. I am in love with morphine. And that’s that. Anyone and anything I am in love with: Please do stay away from me. I don’t want to know. It’s all too complicated.

However, there is one pain which I wouldn’t have wanted to miss for the world. Childbirth. You can’t beat it for entertainment value. The Angel gave me false alarm on a Tuesday. Thursday morning I drove to Heathrow Airport to pick up my sister. No sooner had I set off across the New Forest labour kicked in for real. I timed it. Every five minutes. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Still, remember we are on the subject of ‘pain’, as long as you have a steering wheel to cling to every wave of a contraction will be easily managed. And yes, I did make it to the airport and back home. I even cooked my sister an English Breakfast in between doubling up before I took myself off to hospital. Naturally, and who can blame him, the Angel was in no hurry to face his mother so we had a long drawn out night. Till, Friday morning, his father had an argument with the doctor and the midwife told me: “This baby has to come out”. Indeed. State the obvious. Once I was threatened with the prospect of forceful intervention the Angel had the decency to emerge before I was wheeled into theater.

My point? My point is that birthing pain is the one and only pain which is most wonderful. Why? Because at the end of it you do have a result. A true result. A miracle. Worth every pain you never thought possible. Yes, a miracle. And that is is how I look at him. A miracle. Coming up to twenty one years.

U

Past and present

Winsome Bella says about herself that she is “no longer a believer in that the best is yet to be.” You, Bella, qualify this by saying that the best “is here and now”. I can’t underwrite either. But it sure set me thinking.

What is “the best” in anyone’s life? It so varies from each phase, moment to moment. Which examples to illustrate my point to choose from? Let’s take something simple: One moment you fervently pray that you are not pregnant, some years down the line you pray you are.

Another example, and I lost a friend over this: She married young, had two daughters and (by her own admission) had the most terrific sex with her husband when they were in the throws of divorce. Something I can’t fathom but that’s another subject. She married again, a sort of hippy mellow yellow type, kind to her children and everyone else. Naturally, one can be too yellow mellow a man. So that petered out. We now have Elizabeth Taylor in the making: Wedding number three. And that’s where she blew it (for me) big time: On her wedding invitation she wrote “THIRD TIME LUCKY”. (Remember Bella’s “the best yet to come”): Third time lucky? Come again? I wrote back to her, scathingly, that ‘third time LUCKY’ not only negating her previous life but an insult to the two men she had committed herself to before. An insult. And, yes,  I didn’t attend the wedding (which  according to her brother (FOS) was a long drawn out tedious affair with so many poems, readings and swearing of ever lasting love it left everyone wishing for a glass of champagne before nodding off). Third time lucky. What I am trying to say – in a rather cumbersome way and where Bella comes in again: Yes, we live in the here and now. And in the NOW let us not demean that which went on before. 

All I know: Life is not one big parcel. It’s many little boxes. You may feel not so good in one part of your life,  deliriously happy in another. At the same time. Happens to me every day.

U

Rolling

I don’t like people who count pennies. Yes, that does include the most delicious of James Bonds, Sean Connery.

I am cooking dinner and the radio station I am listening to is playing: “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Well, Mick. I am not surprised. Give me Keith Richards any time.

U

Cockles

If there is one thing that’s frustrating about life it’s choice. And, no, I am not talking about standing in my supermarket’s aisle 23 pondering pasta shapes.

The world is your oyster. I didn’t exactly cut my fingers on opening the oyster (beware all you youngsters out there), neither can I blame an oyster for food poisoning.  Where time had no measure (remember the oyster) as the years go by the tunnel tightens.

The tunnel tightens: What to spend your time on.

Have come to conclusion it doesn’t matter. Spend your time. On whatever is on hand this minute. Be generous. Don’t measure your time in value of return. Once you are done you are done. Let’s hope you are not a steak.

U

Innocence

Once upon a time I walked into a mosque. Men only. How was I supposed to know that you can’t watch men on their knees, head down, bottoms up?  Can’t remember which country. Obviously one with mosques. And lots of chanting beforehand to remind you of your appointment with Allah.

After I was shown the door I got myself lost in the trading area.  Not lost as in ‘lost’, just meandering. Colourful men will smile at you and try and sell you carpets in dark places. After I had gone AWOL for two hours or so, FOS, versed in the ways of the wicked world and suspicious, sent out a search party. Four or five of his staff. Thus I was ‘found’. He went ballistic. Whilst his concern most romantic in its own way – which woman doesn’t like a man to rely on – I don’t know what the fuss was about. Though, admittedly, even my father had warned me of blond slave trade when in my teens.

People worry too much. And I’d make a terrible slave.

U