Monday Joy!

This week will be a good one.  I can tell.

For a start, I woke at 5:45 this morning, I was up by 6, and soon I had been round Sainsburys and back long before I forgot the main thing I went for.

The day stuttered from then on, though I did order some food from an online butcher.  Mince pies, known in this foreign imperialist land as 'Scotch Pies.' I also ordered other varieties with them, as these are impossible to obtain in this area, and this will fill my fridge for a wee while.  They work out at around £2 each, which is not much more than some rubbishy shop pies here cost.  The shop I found is in Forres, way up in the north of Scotland.

I was boasting about my buy, content in spending yet more money to save money when a crunching sound caught my ear.  The washing machine has stopped in the middle of a cycle and died!  I had filled the thing but did not realise what was already therein.  Too heavy for the old girl and something has failed.  Later, when all had ceased, I removed sodden clothes and now finished them, badly, by hand.  The water remains in the machine and I must search the web to work out how to fix or kill the brute.  

I am so happy about this... 

Boris has been spluttering about 'Tiers and'lock down' again.  I didn't catch what he said but will it make a difference anyway?  People will get together at Xmas whatever they say.  In some cases,especially with locked in grannies this may be a good thing, however, the danger will involve passing on a virus undetected.  Families have to make a sensible choice, sadly far too many will not.  January will be busy for the NHS.   

My family will use the excuse not to contact me, they have used it for 40 years so far, I expect little change there...

Just about lunchtime I was cosy, comfortable and just a wee bit tired.  Since then everything has gone wrong.  Now, I have been waiting on my cheap Tesco pie to cook, choosing proper ones made me hungry, I awaited the burning smell that always accompanies my cooking, I waited, and waited.  I then checked on the thing and found it sitting above the oven attracting flies.  Now I must wait again.  It is all joy at the moment.  I bet there will be no football tonight also, just what I want...

 

Christmas Cat...

I've Never Been so Happy!

 

I spent the night here.

This was not my intention earlier in the day but after last night's 'entertainment' I felt there was no longer any choice. 

We have had the misfortune of 'Brexit,' we have had the greater misfortune of Donald Trump and whatever that means, now the lowest point for a long time has arrived, a 3-1 defeat by the 'wee team.'. 

In all my 32 years I have never known a more humiliating experience than the one offered by the Heart of Midlothian during the Edinburgh Derby against the 'wee team' last night.  Defeats occur occasionally, usually the fault of cheating refs and diving Hibbys, rarely do the Heart of Midlothian get swept aside by the better team as they did last night.

Now as the European Championships take place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at this time of year nobody is allowed to televise football games so as to protect the overpaid self important clubs involved in the Champs league.  This means I could not see the game live and had to rely on the wireless and the comments of the pundits.  However it was clear from this the display was awful.  How it looked to those paying through the nose for their tickets I would hate to say.

Losing 3-1 to the Hibs is not and never will be a good thing but to lose without a fight is terrible, a 'terrible' of frightening proportions.

Why did it happen?  

The new (and as we are constantly told 'young') manager wishes to play classy football.  To do this he has introduced players suitable for the performance of such football and at times this shows through.  However it becomes clear having watched one or two games recently that to succeed at such football a degree of strength is required, this was missing all too often, and not available last night is appears.  Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and others play the type of game we wish to play but add talented players who are strong characters and have the will to fight even against wee teams like the Hibs.  Often they encounter clubs who close them down, hassle them and give them no time on the ball but still produce the goods, this is a trick some of our players have yet to learn.

I spent last night, and rediscovered this morning, many needless abusive comments from people who's mental failings have caused them to support the Hibernian, these posted many comments on Twitter and elsewhere which did not enable my cardiac performance to remain normal.  It is too be hoped that those who post such needless and hurtful comments will contract Mumps in the next few days from their kids!

Oh and the trains had stopped by the time I got down there!  Bah!

Storm Doris!

Now who in their right mind would put a name to a storm?    

At the moment winds of around 30 to 60 mph are hurtling past the window.  Policemen are seen chasing their hats, trees falling over, roofs crashing through houses and the media inform us this is the fault of Storm Doris! Doris!!!  What a daft name to give a storm.  

Why do we need to give storms names?  Who decided this?  

Storms have blown across this land for thousands of years, always referred to as 'a storm' or 'strong winds' or just 'bad weather' yet to enable this enfeebled population to understand that a 'storm' is raging we now know it by a name, and not just a woman's name but we vary from a woman's name to a man's name time after time!  What a load of juvenile baloney.  

A storm is a storm, we need not know it's name as we cannot call the police and as them to catch 'Storm Doris' and not just because they are busy running after their hats either. 

Bah!!!

Look at that poor pigeon, he was swaying this way and that and now hours later he has gone and disappeared.  I suspect he will be in Harwich by now, walking back slowly as he canny fight Doris.

You of course will know the 'Nereids' were sea-nymphs according to ancient Greeks (and some young ones I believe).  Fifty daughters of Nereus and 'Gray eyed' Doris!   Doris was a popular name at one time and was indeed the name of Herod the Great's first wife.  He banished her along with Antipas his son for another and bumped that one, Mariamne, off after 'in house' lies and office politics from the women of the palace even though Josephus claims he actually loved her.

Doris is also the area of south eastern Turkey, then called Asia Minor, which the Greeks helped themselves to unasked in that English Imperialist style.  The area including Halinass Halingcar, Rhodes and Kos formed the 'Dorian League' and they became 'pillars' of the community (did you see what I did there?).  Not many women are called Doris today, fashion in names change as quick as a woman's mind...

What...oh!

Greenery

The picture looks a bit bland, that's because it is.  The wee camera does not do distance very well and if I had left my bench and gone closer some nasty thieving type would have taken my place.  They are very selfish like that around here.  So I took the pic from where I sat and ruminated awhile.  
It was the green that caught my eye.  You see we notice it all around us each day, especially after the rain we have endured, but we never 'see' it.   I have noted this before, many times, but few notice what we see as it's so obvious, it stares in our faces daily.  I suspect gardeners will be well aware of this but maybe not.  What I am seeing is the vast shades of green in those trees.  there is at least six shades there, allowing how your PC reads the colours of my picture, and there are many more shades of green around.  
This park began as the home of a rich man, the gardens surrounding the building were planned by a clever chap whoever he was.  The wide and interesting variety of trees today stand tall yet the designer could see this only in his minds eye.  After forty years and the money running out the house became a school for girls for decades.  A while back, just after the building had been reopened as flats, I passed a grinning woman walking over a grass verge.  Her happiness came from walking where she had once been banned on pain of death!  It took forty years but she was now skipping like a Spring lamb!
Small pleasures are the best!
I am making the most of the greenery.  The nights are drawing in, it was darkish by eleven last night and Christmas gods will be in the shops soon, some folks are ahead of us in this already!
So I am getting what I can when it is there.


.

Joy!

Joy indeed. I had to attend an interview I did not want to go to and was quite down about this. Some things are forced upon us and I was going to go through with it as all options otherwise failed. Joy of joys! Someone had been stealing the copper wire used in railway signals and set fire to a station on the line! There was no way I could reach my destination! Hallelujah! Phoning the contact I discovered there was no other dates as this was the last! So, sadly, that job has gone and I am back to looking for something that I can actually do! Whatever that is?
Who says prayer does not get answered?


Today in1911 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole. Quite what made him do this in wintertime is beyond me. Why didn't he wait until summer when it would be warmer and the journey so much easier? I have never understood why anyone would wish to spend an enormous amount of time and energy crossing vast acres of ice in subzero temperatures. Just what is the joy in having your toes frozen off? Give me sunshine and warmth every time I say.
Anyway Roald made the journey with the usual Norwegian efficiency. He used dogs rather than the horse which I believe Scott used, and prepared solely for an attempt on the Pole, rather than a scientific exploration. He reached the pole a month before Scott, leading the British effort. Scott was of course regarded as a hero,but the more I hear of him the less I find this to be the case. Shackleton made an effort on the Pole also but turned back as he was unwilling to lose his men. Indeed at one time he left many men on the continents edge and bravely sallied forth on a desperate journey to South Georgia to find a ship with which to rescue his men. Scott's determination to get to the Pole first left him careless of both his life and his men's. Amundsen, on the other hand, was Norwegian, and as such better prepared I guess to make such a journey.
The Norwegians are an underestimated people.
Sad people with an ice fetish can find out more here on Cool Antarctica.
Though why these folk need to refer to it as 'cool' is beyond me, the place is freezing surely?