Guided by the voices of cats

A possibly dangerous presumption based around the behaviour of cats: Today the household cats have decided to stay in as it's a damp rainy day. I am presuming this but I have decided to follow suit, to take my lead from the actions of cats rather than any chemical or electrical process counter to this that might be happening in my own mind. I am the slave of  two cats for the day albeit I will not be using a litter tray or carrying out any form of self cleaning using my tongue. As a result I will experience, as far as I can remember, the first full day of lockdown in which I haven't ventured outside of the house at all, not even into the garden. 

In other news we mounted a search last night for "tiny subtitles" on a Swedish sci-fi film. Even from the safety of our own couch it was an extensive and laborious process that we explored for the first time. Sadly we failed; twenty minutes into the film (which shall remain nameless) we were unable to locate the tiny subtitles. This meant that the film, rendered only in the Swedish language was to us, mere Northern Europeans of Celtic origin, totally incomprehensible. In the end we had to give up and watched an Alan Partridge movie instead. It was that kind of evening but we did laugh quite a lot.

I got up this morning and learned a whole lot of things about explosions, gear ratios and eclipses and now I've fried most of my brain, at least for the day. The cat sitting on the TV remote control may have played a small part in this. "Soon 43% will become 76% and we will be near completion." Said a wise old cat.

Accidental Inhalation

How some things may seem the morning after.

In a normal day in a normal universe I'd have awoken this morning with at least a 75% feeling of being hungover: Anniversary outing, wine, Prosecco, Chinese food, more wine, Zoom Bingo, Gogglebox, the News, Twitter, nice gifts, Joe Wicks, rich cakes, hampers, more wine etc. all take their toll. Thankfully nothing happened and I got up this morning clear headed and in reasonable shape (apart from the normal multiple Wick's induced injuries and stiffness that now plagues my "senior" body), so that was a nice surprise. 

I'm also less fixated upon my chipped tooth. I phoned the dentist yesterday but the line was busy with customers who have real problems and actual pain. At one point my dental damage seemed to be the size of a small aircraft carrier in my mouth, now it's more at the level of a leaky rowing boat. These are terrible illustrations I know but my mind is elsewhere as I've been cleaning out the cat litter tray and may have accidently inhaled at some point in the process.

Ten Years After

Gravestone No. AB118 makes a handy temporary table.

As part of an essential shopping journey we made a possibly non-essential journey, only a few miles from the well beaten track in fact to our old house, our former home and the location of our wedding ten years ago. We were married in the church next door and then had the celebrations etc. in a marquee in front of our house. 15th May 2010. 

We moved away eight years ago but came back today just for a wee look around and to remember and reflect on the day. Those that are now not with us, those that have arrived and the journey we've been on to get this far. We sat in the sun by the church, sipped some Cava whilst looking over the ancient graves. OK not particularly glamorous spot I know but, in my view, the right thing to do. Cheers to us!

Once we'd done that I was naturally curious to inspect the septic tank, the woodland pathway, the paint job on the house, the fruit trees and the general state of things. Phew.

Emergency Dental

How the inside of your mouth feels when there's trouble there you can't quite fix with a brush or a toothpick.

I suppose it had to happen during lockdown, some kind of medical crisis that isn't Covid-19 and isn't actually a crisis. A chipped tooth is not a crisis, the dentist's website kindly explains it all in simple terms. Only an idiot would see minor cosmetic dental damage as problematic. I'm also on a dental plan so it'll get fixed ... some time in 2021. 

Naturally I turned to the internet for solutions, emergency fixes, products called "Tempteeth" and the like. All no doubt Chinese in origin (not a bad thing), three and a half to four stars on reviews, prices and delivery vary wildly. There are YouTube demonstrations, mostly by similar lockdown victims like myself, all quite relaxed, performing and re-performing their tricks to fix that troublesome tooth and thereby restore their dental beauty. Invariably their solutions are temporary, masking and replacing the tooth damage is a daily task, part of their beauty routines along with nails and what have you. They are mostly young women (?).

I'm biding my time here, DIY mouth gluing sessions have seldom gone well for me in the past. I just need to concoct a reasonable story for the dentist's hotline. I'm on the case. Still pondering super glue. Lockdown has created that rarest of things, too much thinking time.

(Tiny) Tooth chipping with laptop logo for scale.

Sympathy for the Dragons

Above: A phoenix. Complicated birds, ultimately in trouble with themselves but always destined to return so it's not so bad really. Fire as a creator is hard to understand for us poor humans and our feeble imaginations and what a phoenix experience feels like is beyond scary. Respect to the phoenix.

Below: You can never get enough dragons really. They are forever popping up in books, films, TV series and art. Mostly as the bad guys but you can never tell, it's complex and the dragon's perspective is often not properly understood or rendered clearly. Here's one to enjoy as they either slowly BBQ you on a spit roast with their lazy hot beery breath or blast you into some incinerated oblivion in a split second of high pressure thermal torture.

Thoughtful illustrations by LB.

Willow Tree Wednesday

Willow: By LB.

Wednesday: Slept a little later, maybe longer. Itchy legs and still sore calves, blaming Joe Wicks and rudimentary brick laying and cement work. Photographing cats and the oil tanker Ohio - all from the window. Tug boats moving, moored against the tide. Reversing beepers. Panic reminder to put out the brown bin because the brown bin collections are starting again and it's full and we don't want to miss out. Yogurt, blueberries and granola in a small dish. A cup of coffee that was not too bitter and went down well. Browsing news out of habit rather than interest, my focus needs to shift. Birdsong. There are lots of birds here. Wednesday 08:19.

Badge

The well crafted badge of the perpetually locked down and bewildered.

We've been awarded the non-Airbnb, non-commercial, non-infected, non-committal badge of adherence to Scottish life in 2020. This is me stepping back to admire our achievement (as designed by one of our grandsons) and our status as being reasonably safe and healthy in body, mind and spirit. If you believe in that sort of ridiculous but interesting twaddle. 

Tune

Stay alert.

A colourful rendition of a favourite plant and pot. I'm staying as alert as possible.

An unprecedented wave of bin juice: That could mean one of two things or indeed two things. One being a kitchen bin mess due to a leaky bag that requires rapid and careful cleaning before it turns into a fully blown kitchen floor disaster.  Fortunately I am trained in the correct procedures and managed to retrieve the situation. The other being a short, pithy description of the PM's Sunday night speech... bin juice indeed.

Staying alert in a stupid world: Weather-wise a bright but disappointing Sunday (that being yesterday), where has spring gone and where is it going? Then the chilly peace is shattered as the interweb gets flooded with outrage and unbelief over the (Westminster) Government's latest ineptitude, as if that was somehow unexpected. Their business is serial fuck-wittery, people actually voted them in and continue to defend them and some faceless "grandees" will benefit from the ongoing and needless chaos. 

I'm remaining locked down in the hope of mass targeted clinical assassinations via a merciful Covid 19 dose dropped in the form of some kind of intelligent weapon of God's supreme judgement from the hold of a passing alien spacecraft onto the various Tory Party / Brexit Party bunkers, all done as a form of universal Darwinism to wash the planet clean. There's a faint chance that we, as a species might survive, or advance even, following such an unprecedented (as in bin juice) event.

Chinese spy-phone

Top tips for photos: Up at 0830 yesterday, looked out of the window and snapped this with my Chinese spy-phone. Right place, right time. My tinfoil hat was discarded in haste some time previously when I was out and about recycling wine bottles. So no filters, manipulation or any shit, just the glorious and misty haze of a very still May morning rolling in from east to west or thereabouts. Wild and free photography. 

As a matter of routine self indulgence I quickly uploaded this onto Twitter, as ever seeking the slightest approval and validation of some sort from that virtual world, such is the shallow nature of my stilted personality. The still and silent pigeon atop the chimney was singled out for praise, of course I hadn't even noticed it at the time of clicking. I'm not much of a details person.

We were promised concrete

We were, I'm sure that it was in the manifesto, somewhere in the small print or a sub-section. A basic right for humans. Concrete, ready mixed, in a handy but actually quite heavy bag. Just add water. Messy to use, tends to have a mind of it's own but still strangely satisfying to work with. Now there's none to be had. The supply chain looks broken. Where did it all go wrong? Why didn't we learn the lessons from pasta and toilet paper? 

VE Day

I'll not be waving any Union Jacks today, eating jammy scones or standing up for the Queen and the National Anthem. There's no Blitz Spirit here, there's no triumph or hijacking of history. In the end our Colonial masters won something but failed to understand it or learn lessons. Now they still look down on us irrespective of service and sacrifice. My dad hated the Tories even more than I do.

The Queue at B&Q

Under the Forth Railway Bridge (abstract view), as seen as part of some daily essential exercising that takes less than the mandated hour. I'm still not completely clear on what a fully "legal" lockdown day actually looks like.

I was thinking about all the people I saw in a queue outside of a B&Q store. It's a sunny morning, I'm looking for some concrete, technically I've made an unnecessary journey but my mental health barometer told me I needed the concrete to build a stone step, yackety yack, to improve the garden etc. So I joined the fairly large queue. A sunny morning, only about 0930 but there were many eager souls in that queue, mostly couples, shorts and t-shirts clutching phones as is the custom. All lost in thoughts on doing up the bathroom, some running household repairs or fixing up the garden like me.

The queue was slow and though I've been in B&Q many times, now from this strange queue the inside of the store seemed quite a mysterious thing. How had it changed I wondered? Would it be one way? Would there be an uneasy sense of desolation? Certain stocks and facilities were not available according to the on line messages I'd seen. It was now another dark world, a small part of an unfamiliar universe distorted by Covid pandemonium. I reasoned with myself, but I just want a bag of concrete and maybe some fence paint if I can find the "right" colour, whatever that might be. 

After ten minutes I moved up one place and suddenly I saw clearly a sign that I'd been avoiding reading: "No plaster, cement or concrete products in stock. Only a small selection of fence paints. More stock due in next week." So that was it, no stock or at least nothing worth standing in a line for. I ducked under the tape, always at a safe distance of course, jumped in the car and drove over to Homebase. First thing I did was check the signs and sure enough: No plaster, cement ... etc." 

Turns out we're all the same. We just want some cement and some paint, perhaps some bedding plants and a pack of drill bits. You can try Amazon but delivery dates and times are screwed so you go "non essential" in a fake, self induced bid of desperation. We're all looking for a purpose right now and sometimes just hating the Tories or being angry at the media or the virus isn't enough. There are higher purposes but seriously who cares? You just need to get back home and mix up some concrete in your garden, in your own small world.

Never Forget

Danger Danger! Trite message warning: Mr Natural's been around for a while, sometimes lying low, underground as it were, sometimes right there in your face, sometimes forgotten altogether, perhaps in disguise from time to time. You never can tell. Things come and go. So as we control ourselves so as not to be too grumpy, try to take a "philosophical" view, don't take our many privileges for granted and try to solve more problems than we might create and never forget that we are all simply ... passing through. 

My Generation

The UK press is at the bottom of this chart unsurprisingly. It's a wake up call but the press still refuse to listen. Pathetic. Back in the day (March maybe?) I'd still see older folks (60+ like me) picking up daily newspapers in shops or supermarkets at about 1100 in the morning. The Daily Mail, the Sun, Express etc. Clearly taking the paper home to read news and opinion that is at least 24 hours old and distorted and twisted beyond belief, but their habit prevails. I can hardly believe it. I do not understand what compels anyone to buy a daily newspaper (any of the "popular" ones) in this day and age. 

I lost faith in "mainstream" media years ago and 2014 and 2016's events put the tin lid on it, but so called sensible, responsible people are still habitually buying into this world of manipulation and deception. Just seeing the PM's face on the cover of a paper makes me want to set fire to it never mind buy it. I just give up on a large section of my own generation, whatever is coming your way you probably deserve it (but the rest of us don't). Call it Karma.

Pond life

Pond life via the "glorious day" patented filtering system.

As I walked out one midsummer morning; surprisingly I didn't end up busking with a violin in Southampton, wheeling barrows round London, after a while arriving in Spain and getting involved (?) in the civil war and eventually getting rescued by an RN destroyer off Gib and then coming home and once back there writing a book about it all. That must have been somebody else, someone more literate and imaginative than me and it must have been at least 80 odd years ago. Please don't be confused by any of this.

So we walked out, not from the Cotswolds but from our home base in the 'Ferry to explore the rich natural habitat that exists beyond the charity shop and just down by the telephone exchange (a redundant sounding concept) and near the building site where nothing is currently happening because of the world wide shit storm that is 5G mobilization. So it was there we happened upon the mythical Ferry pond for the very first time in history. We walked around it like wide eyed tourists and looked into it's depths and took photographs, as above. A pleasant enough way to start the day. Then we walked back home taking a slight detour to explore a short section of beach and the harbour just to check that the tide was still behaving itself. Thankfully it was.

This was Monday

Dusk: A cat looks across at the comings and goings at the local Co-op. Quiet now due to lockdown, earlier closing. No restless groups of youngsters, folks coming back from the pub or an evening meander. Stopping by the cash machine. Check your balance. Getting some Chinese food or coffee. Parking up and leaning on cars. Talking into phones. Bikes and skateboards and dog walkers. Smoking. Alighting from buses after a day in the city. Shift workers and white van people. All quiet now.

The Legacy

Everything can be prefaced with "Lockdown" just now, it labels, describes and justifies all sorts of things: Lockdown drinking, eating, DIY, sex, sickness, mental illness, fashion choices, exercise regimes etc. So here's a random Lockdown TV choice from Denmark full of unlovable characters and awkward tension for the viewer. Festooned with free flowing and often too quick to grasp subtitles, irritating quirks, huge plot twists in every episode, bad writing and scripting (the word "jolly" comes up a lot), some stylish moments, shocks and cringe worthy soap opera style coincidences. Still good enough to pass a few hours under the curse of the 2020 lock, stock and two smoking grill pans. Best enjoyed on a squashy couch with some cheap red plonk and your significant other.

No hi-fi here

Purists may be offended: Telly on, tuned to YouTube, listening to the "Beano" album by the Blues Breakers. Sounds OK to be honest, a bit like an Alexa session would. This is how I mostly listen to stuff, proving that I'm just not what I'm supposed to be / expected to be at this venerable age. Next up Steely Dan. I suppose I grew up listening to music on pale coloured Dansettes with 3" speakers. There is no hope.

Fluffy Cat

Simple solutions for complex problems: When all around is grim and 2020ish and some are losing their heads (but still the weather is reasonable, cloudy but rain expected to clear mid-morning etc.), all you need is to concentrate upon a rendering of a fluffy cat asleep in a strange position to simply take your mind off all your troubles, anxiety and what to rustle up for lunch from your extensive egg collection*. 

*Even for me that was a fairly long and poorly constructed sentence but I've no intention of changing it now this far into the day.