New years resolutions and other pipedreams.

Part eighteen again.

It must be that time of year again, signs and portents and all that. There were some amazing skies in Ireland and I took full photographic advantage, to the point where it was all getting a bit clichéd.

I’m still gutted that I missed the really big seas, imagine the force of a full on Atlantic storm when it hits it’s first landfall… Or perhaps it’s just as well I wasn’t there, so I wasn’t tempted to perch on some precarious outcrop and teeter in the teeth of the storm in order to take piccies of the approaching tsunami…..

Actually, once it stopped raining and I achieved a semi upright position for more than ten minutes, some of the skies oooop North were pretty impressive. There was a particularly outstanding one somewhere along the A1, I was so tempted to pull over and root my camera out. Except there’s nowhere to pull over and even if there had been I would most likely have ended up with an extensive collection of trucks as Armageddon rolled on by, obliterating the sunset. I did try to take a couple with my mobile, but as I’m sure the forces of law and order will tell you, it’s a bad idea to play with fiddly technology while doing ummmmm, slightly over seventy in the fast lane? Anyway, the pictures were a washout of blurry nothing.

 Despite this and somewhat against my better judgement, I have decided to purchase a proper camera. This was most likely down to the influence of flu and drugs. Shops have been visited (even out of town superstores, which I regard as a sort of mind numbing limbo, sponsored by the government to keep the populace brain dead and designed to part the afflicted from their cash while they aren’t looking). Websites have been trawled (mostly not by me). Advice has been sought (and left me feeling more ignorant than when I started). The result is that I still intend to buy pretty much the first camera I looked at! Of course this means I will also have to replace my poor old laptop :-(, it's served me well, but can't seem to run more than two tabs at a time now. The amount this is going to cost is scary. I’m trying hard not to think about it.

Now that I am no longer feeling like boiled shite, I am attempting to introduce a new regime in the hope of getting stuff done. Top of the list is ‘Get up when I wake up’. Now this might sound obvious, but my body clock is a little messed up. The reason for this can (as usual) be attributed to Himself. He is, as I may have mentioned, a creature of the night, he was most offended when, in the early days of the relationship I christened him ‘Nosferatu’… (after he had Googled it!). 

He thinks that about 9pm is a good time for dinner, followed by a stroll down to the pub about 10.30. Invariably he remains till well after last orders and normally gets home about 1am, just in time for a little light paperwork. Bedtime is somewhere in the wee hours. Morning is something that happens to other people, particularly as he is liable to react badly to sunlight (it makes him grumpy, but so does cloud and rain). I am normally serenaded at 7.30 by the morning fart, a prizewinner of some decibels, this is succeeded by a gentler chorus of coughs and snores. Having roused the beast beneath the bed, she snuffles and wriggles for a while before emerging, shaking herself vigorously and asking either to go out or get into my bed. I then lie there hallucinating gently until his alarm clock goes off and we go back to sleep. I am convinced this is unhealthy, particularly as it has become a habit even in his absence.

In common with most of the rest of the population, my new year’s resolution was to get a bit fitter and loose some lard (I tried to wear the dress I wore to my daughter’s wedding five years ago. It didn’t go well). Therefore, I am determined that the dog and I will go for a brisk two mile walk every morning. Whatever the weather. I hope she forgives me eventually. I also hope to fulfil an ambition and sign up at the local climbing wall. I love swinging out of the rigging on a Tallship, but it’s not terribly convenient.

I thought it would be a great way to get fit. There’s only one small problem.

In a futile attempt to inject a little glamour into my life, I went to a small nail bar to have my nails done. Now I have never even been inside one of these places before, and I have to say the fumes did wonders for my sinusitis (temporarily), but I was utterly clueless when confronted by a smiling Vietnamese lady and an astonishing range of multicoloured talons. Luckily there was another lady having her nails done who managed to explain that I just wanted white tips (I did???). These were applied by a young man who appeared to have no English whatsoever. I realised this when I asked if he could make the claws he had just superglued to my fingers significantly shorter and more rounded and well, more normal. He smiled broadly, nodded and looked expectant. It turned out he just wanted my money. Weakened by flu, I gave up, paid up and left.

This is why you should always wear gloves....

Since then I have been unable to pick up small objects, type accurately or pick my nose. On a more positive note, they are wonderful for giving the dog a really good scratch and very handy for getting right into the corners with decorators caulk. Getting the stuff (and everything else) out from under them is bloody impossible though. Anyway, my climbing ambitions are on hold until the damn things drop off.

I am also working on a little bit of product development. While I was in Ireland I spent some of my  evenings (whilst watching endless Father Ted DVDs, I wonder if it FECK affected my ARSE sorry, brain) making driftwood frames and stuff with rope and paper boats made from old charts.

Grommet mirror (not the cartoon dog!)

Driftwood frame

another driftwood frame

Blackboards

Driftwood boat with sails cut from old charts

Paper boats made from old charts

I picture myself in attendance in my delightful little gallery and workshop (that is, my garage, I will have to remove the spuds and firewood), chatting to customers and sipping tea, or possibly pimms while the sun shines and the birds sing as the punters hand over their cash. The reality is I live in a place that gave the arse end of nowhere it’s name, so far off the beaten track it’s almost come full circle. My ‘drive’ is treacherous even in relatively good weather and it will probably be bloody raining anyway. Who am I kidding???

Wuthering heights, the lost chapter: Snot and portents

Part Eighteen.

It’s all gone a bit Wuthering Heights for me. I’m up in darkest (and that isn’t a figure of speech) Yorkshire, listening to the wind soughing through the trees and chimneys while the rain lashes the window. I’m stuck in bed in Raven Lodge (yes, really) trying to sweat the flu out.

In fact, it’s possible that I may have hallucinated my way through the last few weeks. It’s difficult to decide where exactly it all started….

I went out for a pint or three with my mate for her birthday, not long after I arrived. That was pretty surreal itself. Everything went smoothly enough for the most part, and she didn’t slip into her blues singer (though I use the term advisedly) alter ego. We sat happily enough at the bar, engaged in the traditional pastime of gossiping unashamedly about each new arrival. Nothing terrible happened when I accompanied her to the smoker’s shed (we saved that for our next visit). It all got a little strange when we returned though. An exceptionally insalubrious  and raddled example of what I had to assume was humanity (it was bipedal and most apes smell better) had installed himself next to her stool. He wasn’t unpleasant, but I think he took a shine to her.

Muttering and dribbling he began to stroke whatever parts of her became available. This did not go down too well, and she asked him to desist. Repeatedly. No effect, so I tried. Same result. Shortly afterwards there was a sound rather like ‘gnfff’ (the sound you get by jumping on an almost deflated football?) and two fine specimens of local manhood caught the offender as he sank floorward. Now I’m not suggesting there was any connection, but my mate’s elbow was a bit tender the following day.

The following morning I was woken by sneezing. Mine. It was so violent that it did something very painful to my neck and I struggled to swallow. No better by the following day, I inveigled a doctor’s appointment and came away with a prescription I needed two hands to carry. I carefully followed the instructions and promptly passed out. Things weren’t much better the next day, when the side effects kicked in and I spent the day prostrate on the sofa with my head in a bucket.

The weather gods were kind to me though, it pissed it down, so I didn’t feel guilty about remaining horizontal (not that I had any choice). I gradually adjusted to the medication, although my perceptions of reality may have been slightly altered. I persisted in trying to bring the garden under control during the day. At night, possibly thanks to the drugs, things got rather strange. The wind had been increasing steadily and every night it howled and caterwauled it’s way through the eaves and round the corners. This combined with ever so slightly mind altering substances led to some truly bizarre dreams, you know, the sort where you find yourself wide awake and bolt upright in bed, convinced that you have heard something nasty downstairs? And then you wake up? It wasn’t very restful and probably enhanced some of the less desirable side effects. Of course watching several episodes of Father Ted before retiring probably didn’t help either. The televisual equivalent of half a pound of gorgonzola and a couple of chilli peppers?

At some point I was invited to attend a film evening at a local pub. Intrigued, I accepted and donned my gladrags. As far as I could tell when we arrived, the audience consisted of two or three bemused locals who just wanted a quiet pint, and a handful of eccentric ex pats from various corners of the world. We settled down with our bowls of popcorn and the slightly distressing smell of long unwashed upholstery (adds to the authenticity of the experience) to watch ‘The Big Lebowski’. One lady cackled her way through the whole thing, regardless of what was happening on screen. My companion grumbled and occasionally asked me what the hell was supposed to be going on (English isn’t her first language, if there were any subtleties they were lost on her). She dropped me off at the end of my track, I trudged up, drank a glass of wine and wondered if I had imagined it all.

The wind persisted and I continued with the medication. Eventually it was time to go. I went. For the first time in months I was feeling quite fit and healthy. I was positively looking forward to Christmas with my daughter and her family.

I arrived at Himself’s at four in the morning, cuddled up next to him… ‘I think I may have a cold’….

He did indeed have a cold, which first manifested itself as gallons of snot and subsequently as an extremely irritating cough.

Convinced (on previous evidence) that he was about to die, I was persuaded to stay an extra night and soothe his fevered brow. He kept me awake all night with his bloody cough.

The day of my departure dawned, with weather warnings of rain and gales for most of the country (the previous day had, of course, been clear and still). I set forth and spent the next 230 miles trying my best not to die for Xmas. I had left the dog behind, so worried was I that I might meet a sticky end on the journey.

The following day I went to catch the train to London, but nothing turned up. I got a lift to a bigger station and watched as the train pulled away from in front of me.. . When I eventually got there I was feeling a little seedy, but I put it down to all the travelling. My daughter and I stayed up late, assembling the little one’s flat pack kitchen (roughly half life size and just as bloody complicated). At least I know what to get my son in law next year. Screwdrivers that aren’t made out of tinfoil!!!

If they aren’t careful, the child may turn into a mini Mrs Doyle….

The following day I was drowning in my own snot.

Then I passed it on. I don’t think I’m very popular there now.

On the way back I thought I was being clever by going to Stratford. Don’t. It’s shit. Underground it’s a poorly signed rabbit warren, above ground, having followed what signs you can find, you can stand on the platform you thought you needed and watch your train depart from the opposite platform.

Things were not going well.

After a day for recuperation I once again got in the van and headed ooop North. Himself was still coughing, but I thought my cold was defeated at last. So I replaced it with flu. He’s still coughing. One of us may have to die.