Saturday, November 30

Greece is the word


  ... Greece was the word on our plane tickets at the end of September. We didn't want to be obvious and visit an idyllic island with sweet blue-and-white houses, charming windy streets, fairy lights and jolly tavernas that would slap down a fresh fish soon as look at you. No we went to a part of Greece with an unusual amount of mattresses and unwanted toilet bowls by the roadside. A part of Greece where the only 'taverna' had a chalkboard outside promising many different sorts of fresh fish but in actual fact only ever had frozen shrimp and things made with a lot of cheese.

We stayed in a stone barn in the middle of olive groves, the view out over the blue blue sea and the islands beyond made us forget about the mattresses and too-much cheese. Also a lovely dog called Susie adopted us. Susie slept outside our bedroom on the balcony and accompanied our morning walks (past the wayside mattresses and toilets) to the beach and the bakery.

Also there were chickens, we cooked with their eggs and they offered endless entertainment, best was the evening show as they climbed or tried to fly into their roosting tree, then jostle and do that happy chicken noise as they found the right branch suitable for them all to settle down side by side for the night.




Sunday, September 22

September students

It's a startlingly sunny day, I'm on my lunch break and take a seat to enjoy the unusual warmth and the sight of dazed-looking freshers just arrived from Planet Zog, trying to figure out how doors work and what a potato is for.

A young man joins me on the bench and after a while asks if he can ask a question, he's careful with his words, he's trying out a whole new vocabulary

Where do I get wash tabs?

For clothes - laundry? (he nods) Any supermarket will have them

He looks puzzled and I can't quite get his accent, I'm guessing he's from eastern europe - or maybe further afield

If you go to the top of this street you'll see a Sainsburys, big orange sign, they will have a range of laundry products including tablets. 

I went on to explain about supermarkets as he didn't seem familiar with the concept, then I asked where he'd come from ...

Wales




Thursday, September 5

Where did August go?

Too fast that's where it went...

The month featured a tale of two cats, one of them - an old friend - died, we will have her wake tomorrow. The other started visiting us at Gin O' Clock every evening, she accepts a piece of salami and then uses our garden as her personal bathroom.

My father is very ill I have been visiting as often as I can. He's actually very calm and comfortable, clearly at peace with the prospect of an ending but we are all in fear at the idea of a world without him in it.

 

Conversations with strangers

My work involves me spending time with people in a waiting room, sometimes they're quiet, other times they really want to chat. I've got PTSD from some of the things people tell me, yesterday I was just confused.

A woman arrived, accepted a cup of coffee and told me how furious she is at the government's announcement about stopping the £500 winter fuel payment to pensioners, she told me how her mother found it difficult to  cope. I sympathized, then she moved on to the joys of a clothing resales app called 'Vinted'.

Mum's a shopoholic, she just won't stop, her house is full of bags of clothes still with all the labels on. Every now again to make room for the next lot she'll take a load to the charity shop and I said - Mum! look you could make money on this stuff. I put some of it up on Vinted last week, 6 dresses, 10 pairs of jeans - all brand new, never worn - I got £35 for it !



Tuesday, July 16

My Lovely Horse


 

 

July is the month for horse-cleaning.  I join in with the annual re-whitening of the Uffington horse in Oxfordshire. The horse was created possibly three thousand years ago by digging a 2 metre deep trench and then filling it with chalk. It's hard to express my wonderment at this monument, how did they dig those trenches (probably slaves). How was it designed, the horse is so big that when you're working on it it's hard to remember which bit of the body you're on. 

 

Is the creature actually a horse? there's whiskers on it's face - referred to as the  'beak' which only makes sense when you hear that an excavation in the '90s revealed that the whiskers had originally been a metre longer. The 'horse' has changed over the millenia by encroaching turf which is why the beak isn't very beaky. It had been noted that the rate of turf-encroament meant that the lines around it's head would disappear completely in a few years. Which is why this year we helped an archeological team to restore the lines to an earlier width.

One of the team brought along horsey tattoos for us all - I might make mine permanent.

Wednesday, May 22

Meatstick Queen

 

Been looking after this cat lately, she has a tiny head and ears that fold down onto her head, she is very keen on 'meatsticks' - a cat product I'd not heard of before - is this a job, making-up made-up food items?


I've not been dead these last few months, just lumpen, and waiting for something nice to happen but here's a recap


February - worked all month at a foot-scraping clinic: part of my job involved helping clinicians remove moldy toenails, the other parts seemed to involve being abused and not being paid much so I didn't stay.


March - interviewed by two adult schoolboys for a clerical job at the eye hospital, they couldn't remember what questions to ask me and had to keep nudging each other and pointing at bits of paper.


April - mainly rain


This is what a cat who wants 'meatsticks' looks like
 

Wednesday, January 31

Conversation piece

January has been a bit draggy, scraggy and irritating... a bit like me 


At the beginning of the month I started a conversation with a very beautiful woman, I asked her what she was expecting for this coming year. She said that after more than 40 years of marriage to a beautiful but awful man - who'd made her feel worthless and ugly, she'd just finished divorcing him. She'd walked away from the beautiful house and beautiful garden, the beautiful cars and she was quite detailed about the beautiful furniture she'd left behind. Interestingly the one thing she'd kept was his beautiful name, which had been the thing that had made me start talking to her.

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