How Exciting Can Life Get?

I was talking to a friend last night: a person of considerable talents; a person of deep and ingrained social beliefs; a person with a desire to improve the world or at least some part of it; a very serious person but a person with a highly developed sense of the absurd; a person I respect - a lot.

The conversation has made me slightly uneasy because it reminded me that, in my youth, I too wanted to change parts of the world.   I had never felt the need nor desire to challenge my parents (who allowed us freedom on the tacit understanding that we never turned that freedom into licence) but I challenged the establishment of my small world in local government.  I still have strong(ish) beliefs and hope that I also still have my sense of social and personal integrity.  However I no longer have the desire to challenge nor to change as I once did.

I do, though, still have a sense of the absurd.  So when our conversation ended I wondered to myself what had happened in my world during the day that was of any significance.  This is what it all boiled down to:

Boiled down to!! I put three eggs in to boil and one exploded: big bang too!

Catriona thought that my thumbs were both weird and awesome.

Martin decided to cut down the 2 1/2 year old gum tree behind The Cottage - they grow at a fantastic rate and height (and there is already a complete paddock of mature ones ready for felling for firewood).

This morning it is no more.

and the second trailer load is filled with the remnants

In the meantime I have a dead ride-on mower at the front of The Cottage

And I played a croquet match.  My day was full from start to finish.  But of what?  Insignificant trifles.

A Shallowness of Mind

Driving home from town this afternoon I pondered on life, the universe and everything and came to the conclusion that Deep Thought was wrong and the answer is not 42.  Of course in reality we don't actually know what the question was but wotthehellarchiewotthehell. 

Why was I pondering?  Well my day has, so far, been spectacularly good: in a superficial sort of way that is.  Actually in a very superficial sort of way.  However (I was going to use 'but' but I keep getting chastised for starting sentences with conjunctions so I thought I'd use however which is usually an adverb and the purists might not notice I've used it as a conjunction) quite a lot of not-so-good is happening to some of my friends at the moment and it's been affecting my thoughts because I can do nothing for them.

In fact these photos reminded me of my mood: full of admiration for the beauty of the nature they portray but full of foreboding for the storms they presage.

One of the emails I received was from a friend who is always amazingly cheerful and really does live by the mantra given to her by her father when she was a child: smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.  It was a very cheerful email which just happened to mention that she'd been burgled a day or so previously whilst she was out (doing voluntary work) but the the burglars had been very neat and tidy and even put everything back on the bathroom window ledge whence they had gained entry.

On reflection it makes me realise how shallow I have become. I did a puzzle given to me by a friend yesterday and on the first attempt I got 'pretty smart' and on the second attempt 'genius'.  The fact that I'll probably never manage to do it again is irrelevant!  Then my GC partner and I had a  comfortable doubles win in a Club competition match.  Last of all a friend invited me to play a game of Words with Friends (it's like Scrabble played over the internet) and promptly put in a word with a score of 71.  I think the highest I've ever achieved is in the 40s.  After thinking and experimenting (I had two wildcard tiles) for many hours I came up with a word scoring 95!  I have absolutely no idea what the word means but I tried to put in a word and had one tile left over so just fitted it somewhere until the computer accepted it.

So perhaps the answer to the unknown question is 42 after all.

Thankful Thursday

It's just before midnight on Thursday here in New Zealand and I am back home in The Cottage and back on wifi and no longer reliant on my iPhone for internet access - not ideal for blogging!

I have various things to say from my time away - assuming that I can remember them all - but for now I shall simply say how thankful I am for the hospitality of croquet friends who housed, fed and watered us whilst I and a few others from our croquet club were away at the tournament.

The days have been long out on the lawns in weather ranging from very hot and sunny to (relatively) cold with pouring rain and gale force winds. We have walked for miles (according to my iPhone app I walked over 5 miles in two games today and we usually play three) and spent a great deal of time tiring the brain by concentrating.  The evenings (when we eventually managed to get home from the lawns) have been filled with friendship, good food (and the occasional red libation) and good humour.  The - all too few - sleeping hours have been sound and deep notwithstanding strange beds and surroundings (well actually my friends have very comfortable beds and surroundings but they are strange in the sense of being unusual to me).

Within the hour (by which time it will be tomorrow) I shall be gratefully fast asleep in my own bed with no need to be awake at 6am in the morning (which probably means that I'll be wide awake by then).

On the way home I saw the most unusual rainbow that I have ever seen.  It was taken through rainy car windows across the front of the driver at speed but is, I think, quite impressive.

So for all these things I am very thankful indeed.

Thankful Thursday

Phone call from a friend this morning at 0730 "Are you still ok for dinner tonight?"

Me "I thought it was the 4th we were going."

Friend "It is."

Me "But that's tomorrow."

Friend "It can't be.  Friday is the 4th.  I've just checked."

Me "Yes.  But today's Thursday."

Friend "It can't be I've just looked in my diary."

Duh!

So it's not just me who has problems!

Phone call from the same friend at 0740 "X and Y can't come tomorrow.  They are too tired after all the relatives left yesterday.  Can we postpone it for a few days?"

We had lunch instead to catch up.

Friend lived in Auckland for years until retiring to Napier about four or five years ago and has become immersed in the Napier life but still has a rather Auckland pace to her life.  "I still have difficulty with the fact that people stop at every roundabout whether or not anyone is on the roundabout.  Then I stop thinking shouts [she is far too ladylike actually to shout] at them and remember that I came here to get away from the Auckland way and pace."

I was reminded of the poem Leisure by W H Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I quoted this poem on Eagleton Notes some time after I started blogging.  Blogging has given me the reason for stopping and staring and taking life - albeit a very full life - at a much gentler pace and living in the Outer Hebrides and Napier has assisted that.

For all of that, and for butterflies, I am truly thankful.

A New Zealand Red Admiral - the first I've photographed this time here.

Friend Who Knows Too Much

I count myself amongst the most fortunate of people.  I have friends.  True irreplaceable friends.  I have friends who have been there for me when things fell apart.  I have friends who stood no nonsense when I felt sorry for myself and gave me a right good talking to.  I could carry on but the list is too long.  This post is about one particular friend: Friend Who Knows Too Much otherwise known as FWKTM.  Why am I posting about her now?  Because a lot of different things have happened recently which have caused me to refer to FWKTM and I forget that not everyone knows the significance.

On Good Friday, for example, Meike's Mum wrote a guest post on Meike's (Librarian's) blog and I commented that it was a case of whatever is is best.  To the extent that we make the most of our misfortunes (or good fortunes) that is exactly what the story demonstrated.  However this was a philosophy I had 'learned' as a small boy from 'Uncle John' our next door neighbour.  It remained unchallenged by me until the last decade when FWKTM questioned my approach and pointed me to Voltaire's Candide.  We spent many hours discussing Voltaire and tiny snippits of Nietzsche as we understood him.

Prior to Good Friday's post I had had a discussion with Meike on another subject and she referred me to her post entitled My Friend.

"My friend and I go back a long, long way.

As far as my memory reaches, back into early childhood where things tend to get a bit blurred and only single objects, sounds, sights or scents stand out clearly against the backdrop of the first few years, we've always been friends.

While we grew up, naturally the pattern of our relationship underwent changes; some of them subtle, some less so, but our friendship never suffered.

With my friend, I have been able to open many doors to the inner realm of imagination and delight.  

On the very rare occasion where the delight turns into fear, I never blame him, and those events never leave a scar on our friendship. 

My friend puts me at ease when I am troubled, restores my energy when I am exhausted and offers a welcome refuge from the outside world when I feel I can not face it.

Some years ago, a change of circumstances, of work place, of where I live.

True friendship does not suffer from such changes; it may shift and be altered, but does not break or peter out. 

So, of course, my friend and I remained as close as before. 

Or so I thought."

To read the end of the story you will have to visit Meike (Librarian) whose story it is and find the twist in the tail (or tale).

However I couldn't help thinking that there were a lot of things in the post that reminded me of FWKTM and I said so.  But the acronym meant nothing to Meike.  So now I have explained the acronym.

As to who FWKTM is:  that would be telling.  We came through hard times together.  We came out of the tunnel and our lives went their separate ways.  But there is nothing on this earth that could ever break the friendship.

On Secretly Skint and Stalkers

A number of people who follow SP, some of whom do not blog or comment, have asked me if I know what has happened to her given that when you go to her blog you get the following:

On the 14 February SP posted the following:

I Get to Have My Very Own Stalker!

by SP

I've often wondered why, when I've posted a comment on someone else's blog,  it doesn't appear instantly, but is saved  "for approval."

I've always had open comments on my blog, and have never had a problem. Well, apart from getting an email pointing out that as none of the writer's friends were experiencing problems with their French tax returns,  the ongoing problems that we're having with ours, must therefore  be a figment of my imagination. I WISH!

So, today I've had a few comments left, of course by "Anonymous"  and with an @noreply email address.

I was accused of many things, including being a liar and recycling a blog that I wrote at the time of, and about, Laughing Boy's illness, when things were at their bleakest for us.

I'm not going to go into detail about Laughing Boy's illness, it's not something that he would thank me for broadcasting, but for many months, we were just about at the end of our tether, and I wrote to try and make sense of what was happening to our lives.

It was an awful period, when we both withdrew from just about everyone around us, and spent our days going on long walks together and researching how we could cope with his illness.

As I wrote before (here) had it not been for the French health service, who eventually diagnosed correctly, and treated his illness, our lives would have been very different.

As for recycling, if I've alluded to events that happened at that time, I've always written "three years ago" before writing about them.

So, I, like Britney Spears and other celebs, get to have my own stalker, hence the "saved for approval" on my blog too.

Can't help thinking that whoever" Anonymous" is, (and I suspect that I know) they must be a bit of a wuss, if they daren't put their name to something that they have written.

Between that post on the 14 February SP posted a number of other articles until the 16 February and then nothing.  I think, given the posts between the Stalker post and the last post on the 16th, SP is taking a break until things settle down with the stalker, with LB's problems and the various other things that are happening.

Given the number of her Blogland friends who supported her after the Stalker post I think SP knows she is not alone.  I, for one, will not be removing SP from my blogroll just yet.

A Bit of This and That

Yesterday was a Very Good Day.  Not that the very indifferent weather played any part in that.  Katherine and Keith came for a long lunch - excellent, knowledgeable and witty company always makes me feel happy.  Then I spent some time with Catriona whilst doing a few more tweaks on the laptop before Wendy and Martin got home.  Then The Family came for dinner (and we watched an episode of Downton Abbey) and I finally fell into bed earlier than usual to catch up with some sleep.

When K and K were here two birds visited The Cottage: a Fantail and a Kingfisher.  Fantails visit frequently and are quite happy to come within a few feet of you to catch insects.  However they are constantly on the move and photographing them is extremely difficult.  The best I could manage yesterday was:

Fantail on The Cottage deck

Fantail on the opposite side of The Paddock

I had better luck with the Kingfisher although the dull light and the fact that it was taken through a double-glazed window didn't make the best of it.

I also received some help identifying a Dragonfly which had died in The Cottage after having, presumably, chased a fly inside with a view to having a meal.  We think that it may be a Ranger Dragonfly (Procordulia smithii).  If it is then it would appear to be unusual in this area.

Thankful Thursday: Home

The subject of 'home' has raised its head a number of times recently but it was SP's post Home Sweet Home which made me think about it more earnestly than usual.  Where is 'home'?  For me home is where I am comfortable with myself in my surroundings.  That's easy for me to say because I've only lived in six places in my life and three of those were fairly transitory in the early '70s when I married and before we moved to the Outer Hebrides.  Except that it's actually seven because now I live in two places: Scotland and New Zealand or, more specifically, Lewis and Napier.  

People often ask me which place I'd rather make my permanent home.  The answer is that as I don't have to make a choice I don't think about it and as I don't have residency in New Zealand the longest I can stay is 9 months at a time anyway.  However I choose to stay 6 months here and 6 months in Scotland (and France and....).  I used to say that if someone pulled up the drawbridge I could live happily in either place but most of my closest friends (excepting my NZ 'family') are in the UK (and those in Canada and elsewhere are in neither home country anyway).

Choosing Lewis is not as simple as that of course: old friends have retired away from Lewis; I have made new friends who don't live on Lewis; very important friends still live on Lewis; and my son Gaz is building a house on Lewis.  The list of considerations is endless.  And there will come a time when I can't gallivant and stay where I wish and see whom I wish and Lewis is a long way from anywhere else.

Some people talk of going back to their roots but I do not know a single person who lives in the city of my birth.

I love Lewis.  I love New Zealand.  I love Glasgow (Well that's pushing it.  I could never live in a city but I enjoy it when I'm there.).  I love France.  I love Canada.  I am happy in the skin that I'm in and I love being wherever I have the privilege to be.  I'm lucky because for the moment I can choose.

For that I am thankful....very thankful indeed.

Thankful Thursday - A Bit Late

Another very simple Thank You.  This time to all the friends who have wondered where I was over the last week. 

All of us who live alone and are, how shall I say it, passed our first flush of optimistic youth where nothing can ever go wrong,  occasionally think about what would happen if we had an accident in the home.  

When Mum was alive she phoned her Brother every night.  He was a widower and lived alone in Anglesey in Wales.  After Mum died I used to telephone Uncle Eric every night.  I lived on Lewis over 500 miles away.  One night there was no reply.  I knew that he wouldn't have been out so I rang back several times over the next hour and then rang one of his neighbours and they went to see whether he was ok.  He'd had a stroke on the way to the phone and was on the floor a few feet away from the phone but unable to reach it.  If he had had the stroke just after he had put the phone down he'd have lain there for another 24 hours.

So today I'm thankful for all the friends - mine and other people's - who look out for their friends and neighbours.  Amongst all the selfishness there is in the world there are still lots of caring people out there.

A Spur of the Moment Visit

Yesterday evening around 8am I had just finished dinner and was contemplating this and that before popping up to The House to catch up on the day and then come down and pack for the 6 day tournament which I'm off to in a couple of hours (from now - lunchtime Friday) in Palmerston North.  As I was pulling my thoughts together Martin rang and said that R and L had just arrived with a bottle of wine for a chat and did I want to come up.  Of course I did.  It's always good to catch up with friends.

The evening was warm and absolutely perfect for wine with friends and the chat ranged far and wide as we sat on the deck: initially in the sun and finally under the stars when the sun retreated to go and play with someone else.  At around half past midnight I arrived back at The Cottage!  Then followed a call from a friend in Scotland and despite my intention of being in bed and asleep within a few minutes of the call ending I eventually switched off the light at 2am!

So I woke this morning with nothing packed and no thought given to my journey this afternoon.  Did I care?  Of course not.  Evenings just don't get much better than that.

A Useful Momento

One of the most useful tools in my kitchen armoury in the UK is a utensil to hold an onion while you slice it.  When I was undergoing radiotherapy a few years ago I was part of a great group of people including Junior and his wife Marlene.  During a conversation one day the subject of onion chopping came up and I mentioned this wonderfully simple but effective gadget and also said that I'd been unable to find another one for my life in New Zealand.  So Marlene went on the hunt and found me one.  So every couple of days when I use it I think of that kindness and of Marlene and Junior.

A Morning Chat

Last night I blogged about friends and Wendy coming down for an evening chat and concluded that face to face chats really were Good Things.  This morning Wendy was going off to Mitre Ten Mega (our B & Q/Home Depot equivalent) at crack of dawn and dragged me away from my Christmas cards and so on to chum her and have some coffee.  When I got back I had to go off to Havelock North and by the time I got back and had lunch it was 1400 and I still hadn't written a card (good job I got the first lot posted yesterday).  Another crack at the cards this afternoon and then some other odds and ends.  I was just settling down to cook some meals in advance of my houseguest who is staying for the next week of the Golf Croquet Nationals when a frantic Wendy returned to watch the last episode of Downton Abbey's second series (the house renovation is at the stage when they can't get into the living room or their bedroom to see the TV).  I've specifically avoided watching any of the second series after I missed the start and decided I'd watch it all on DVD when I returned to the UK.  So I now know the end before I know any of the lead up to it.

It's little things like this that make me realise just how much I enjoy people just dropping in.  I should really be making this my Thankful Thursday post.

An Evening Chat

My friends are scattered throughout the world. I know no one in the city in which I was born and brought up, went to school and uni and worked until I was 26 and left.  A friend recently said that when her friend left the village in which they both lived "I could leave here now. She was part of what made this village home. Su hogar fue mi hogar. These are the ties that bind us.  And in a way that is difficult to define, I feel alone again.".  And I knew how she felt.

When we went to Lewis in the '70s we left 450 miles behind the life we had made for ourselves, our friends and our families.  We forged new lives with new friends.

I stayed on the Island.  Most of the friends I made in those formative years have left even though many have remained very close friends.  There are times when I have felt alone again.  And then new people have arrived and new friendships have been forged.

And now I have deserted them for six months of each year.

In fact because my friends are scattered throughout the world I have become used to keeping in touch by all sorts of means in this age of easy communication.

But this evening as I was about to do something or other Wendy came down to bring me the mail she had collected from the mailbox and to have a chat.  Several hours and several glasses of conviviality later she poddled off back up the lane home.

And the above words came back to me.  And I understood what she meant with a new clarity.  There is nothing like sharing words face to face.

Friends

Friends are what make life.  Of course I include my family - families 'cos I'm lucky enough to have two: a blood family and a surrogate family - because they are friends too.

So when I said in the last post that Lewis was another world, another life, I was referring to the obvious physical and a certain mental change that occurs when I move from one life to the other.  I assume that it's the same for anyone living two separate existences.  What never changes, though, is one's friends.  All that changes is the physical proximity to those friends.

Having lived more than half my life on Lewis it was to be expected that most of my friends would be there.  But life's not quite turned out like that.  Many of my friends, even those who were Islanders (as compared with incomers like me who were not born nor went to school there) are leaving the Island to retire on the mainland - often Glasgow.  My friends and acquaintances are, in fact, scattered across the world.

However the reality of the present day is that communications are so good and so immediate and relatively affordable that we may be far from our friends but we need never be out of touch.  In fact, in some ways, we are often more in touch than we are with people who live not 7 miles away.

So just because I'm on the other side of the world and can't go for coffee in The Woodlands or The House for an Art Lover or Linghams (for another 6 months) doesn't mean that I think about you any less.  'Cos I value my friends.

Thankful Thursday

My reminder function on my cellphone went off at 0800 this morning.  Eh?  It's Thursday.  It's Thursday?  It can't be.  Yesterday was Monday, surely.  No.  Monday was, actually, an almost normal day.  On Tuesday I drove from home to Katikati.  It was a lovely four hour drive in the hot sun with the lid off.  Yesterday was Wednesday and we played croquet.  Today is Thankful Thursday.

I'm really thankful this week for the latest news on Jaz and her family and for Mark's Thankful Thursday blog posting.  Given what the news was like after her operation the progress seems quite remarkable.

I'm also thankful that things are going really well at the moment for Friend Who Knows Too Much.  Promising career opportunities could not come to a more deserving person.

Tonight in the motel it is hot and rather more humid than I'm used to in Hawkes Bay.  After a full day in the open air playing croquet I'm tired and will hopefully sleep soundly.  Although some of the others will have to be up at 0545 I don't have to get up until 0615!  I'm just thankful that we are not experiencing all the snow-storms my North American friends are going through in the East and Mid-West and what is thought to be the worst cyclone ever to have hit the Country people in Australia's Queensland are going through with.  (Sorry about the sentence construction!).    

Matakana Market Band

When Pauline, Twink and I went to the Matakana Farmers’ Market there was a band.  It was a most interesting band.  Apart from being very competent musicians playing appropriately good music, I found the characters themselves of considerable interest.  I just love faces of character:

Contemplation

A man at peace with himself

And suddenly alive (Oddly I found his electric guitar rather at odds with his apparent persona)

In full swing

And a smiling Twink looks on.

Thanks Twink for your hospitality and introducing me to the Garage Sale and the Matakana market scene!

A Friend Indeed

Recently Sue, a friend of many years, commented that she didn’t have a ‘handle’ on my blog like Friend Who Knows Too Much has.  Although she knows different things the sheer length of time that we have been close means that she too knows a great deal about me.  Lots of which I definitely would not wish her to share with anyone else.  So for weeks I’ve had a dilemma.  What ‘handle’ could I find find for Sue.  After all the handle applied to Friend Who Knows Too Much could also apply to Sue.  But then the handles I thought of for Sue could also apply to some other friends that I have.  So here goes:  Sue from henceforth on my Blog you shall be referred to as Friend-whom-I'd-trust-with-my-life. 

Playing The Glad Game

On 15 March 2002 Mum died at the age of 93.  She chose to die whilst she had all her mental faculties although she reckoned that she had a forgettory and not a memory.  If that was a forgettory then I’m not looking forward to what I might have as I get older.  In the period before Mum died I was staying with CJ and Jo.  Mum was still living with them although she went into a nursing home for the last few days of her life.  She was not in the slightest bit afraid of dying and wanted to rejoin her family and friends who had already passed on.  I trust that she is happily united with them.

It was a very sad time but also a time of understanding.  When I returned to Lewis, among the many cards of condolences was one from an acquaintance whom I knew only fleetingly.  It rested upright in front of me on the breakfast bar for some time – longer than it should have done - without me responding.  Then one day I had an unexpected piece of news which prompted me to ring.

So as a result of Mum’s passing I received a card.  As a result of that card I made a phone call.  As a result of that phone call I made one of the most important friendships of my life.

Some would say that God moves in mysterious ways.  Some would say that it just happened.  Some would say that it was fate.  Some would say it was karma.  Whatever.  I offer no opinion.  All I know is that if that simple chain of events hadn’t happened my life would have been very different and very much the poorer for it.

In what seem to be the very worst of circumstances one can still play the Glad Game.

Friends Who Are More Like Family

In her blog Exquisite Juncture, Jen used a term in a posting Shenanigan-izer that I just have to plagerise.  But before I go into detail of that term I should give a little background.

A number of the blogging family to which I belong use terms to define people who may or may not be anonymous.  CJ/Scriptor Senex uses various ones for family members.  For example his wife Jo is Partner-who-loves-tea also known as Partner-who-hates-being-photographed and I am Brother-who-blogs.  A person who has the use of such terms down to a fine and entertaining art is The Archduchesss in Les Chaussettes de L'Archiduchesse.  I refer to a very dear and precious friend who saw me through some Bad Times as Friend Who Knows Too Much.  You will, no doubt, have heard the saying "You will always be my friend....you know too much."

Anyway I have always had some difficulty describing to true relationship that I have with 'The Family' who have adopted me and who are the reason that I now live six months of the year in New Zealand.  Jen has given me the answer.  They are Friends-who-are-more-like-family.   Thanks Jen.

A Decision - At Last

It's taken me six days to reach a decision.  OK I was away for three of those six but... Anyway last night before I went to bed - I had been out most of the day and all evening at a friend's for dinner - I decided that I had to take a decision.  I did.  However I left it open until the daylight of this morning to make sure it was the correct one.  So what was this momentous decion which took so long?

Well it started last week when I drove home after Croquet on Thursday.  I pulled up at the post box.  I'm not sure why because I usually leave it for Wendy because most of the mail is for them anyway.  But that day I didn't!  There was a large bill for my car which had a new cambelt and water pump before Christmas.   But all that was nothing when I saw that there was a package from Vermont!

Do you know that I cannot recall when I last felt such a flutter in my stomach at receiving a package through the post.  And how excited was I when I saw what I had received.  I so love those things which give you a constant reminder of friendship.  Well part of it was that.  Part is for posting about at a later date. 

So I repeat what was the momentous decision which took so long?  Answer: where to put it.  Decision:  next to the plaque that Wendy and Martin bought me several Christmases ago.  I put that under the clock where I would see it many many times a day.  So now I will be reminded of Vermont and a dear friend equally often.