The Truth is out there!

There is such a thing as objective truth, but we have to remove all the subjective factors, and to know a great deal about everything surrounding the truth to get to it.   That is today's epiphany.

I rather like it - but like so many of these things it will probably turn out to be untrue.  I like it because I have always felt that there were real true things - not in the sense of Platonic Ideals - but actual facts which were True... opinions and interpretations could fluctuate, but there will always be a truth.

I am not talking about religious truth - but truth about people's behaviour, motivations.  Even if one's own opinions fluctuate, if one could remove all the interpretative material, somewhere underneath it all there would be a truth about why one did what one did.  

Schumacher Schadenfreude...

This is not about Michael Schumacher - but about one's responses to people in public life.  Alot of people associate very positively with certain celebrities... and some have a great revulsion for others. MS was one of those for whom I felt a mild distaste: he was highly competitive - which is appropriate in a racing driver, and on several occasions he behaved in an "over-competitive" manner, i.e. driving to endanger others, and coming close to cheating.  Unpleasant therefore - so my associations with him  were largely negative.  

I should say that I am not a furiously competitive person, that gene has evaded me, I am interested in stuff, my work, and so on, but I don't want to win.  I occasionally argue with people because I think they are misinformed or misguided, but I don't argue to "win".   (I think).   So obviously Schumacher is not someone I admire or sympathise with much.  Like many risk-averse types I think this sort of behaviour is mad, unnecessary, and liable to bring sorrow to one's family and friends.  My first thought when I heard about his skiing accident was "typical" - i.e. a type A, risk-taking, competitive man goes a bit OTT while skiing and has a ghastly accident and is in a coma.  I didn't quite think "serves him right" but it was more an acknowledgement that people who are risk takers will be more likely to have accidents than people who don't, ergo it had a sort of poetic justice to it.

Schadenfreude is of course an unseemly pleasure in others' misfortunes - and I don't think I'm enjoying his accident, but more that sort of rightness - the poetic justice of it, the "those who live by the sword, die by the sword" feeling.  It is curious - a sense that all is right with the world, because rash behaviour has met its expected outcome.  Yet I am sure this is a feeling that is only common to "sensibles", us poor, white-collar livers of undistinguished lives who find the Schumachers of this world incomprehensible.  Most people perhaps would not see this as just deserts - just bloody bad luck.

The only interesting thing I have learned is that Schadenfreude isn't necessarily about the person... it can be about the wider idea/lesson - about the outcomes that can result from this sort of behaviour.  Not an ad hominem argument at all.   Obviously it is partly to do with a confirmation of our prejudices, we are pleased when the world conforms to our norms, which in my case seem to be dictated by an Inner Nanny... endlessly telling us to "be careful."

My own experience of skiing may also be a factor in my resonses, but that's another story.

A really lovely Christmas

Oh, that sounds rather sentimental and silly - but true.  The cooking all seemed to go really smoothly - the cakes were done and looked ok - and even the cake we kept for ourselves (the runt of the litter) was really nice and not overcooked.  Christmas Eve was great - we had blinis and gravadlax, then ajada which was interesting, and orange creme caramel... some problems with the cooking since we were visited by our neighbour J who is a nice man but completely insensitive to the needs of host - sits down and talks at you until he's finished.  I found this distracting - and was impatient for him to leave - this impatience transferred itself to the cooking.

We picked C up and went to St Augustine's nice carol service - we sang 5 verses of "Oh come, oh come Emmanuel" (one of the Great O Antiphons!!!)  I remember one of our neighbours in London saying she thought it was a dirge...perhaps the organist's fault - nothing dirge like about this.  Then the high Mass began with the blessing of the crib - in English, after that it was Latin all the way (apart from the epistle and the sermmon).  The Gospel was chanted in Latin - I stained my ears to understand: et pannis involvitur she wrapped him in swaddling bands - is really "she rolled him in cloths" and then we had it read in English. There were lashings of incense (the thurifers must have been on overtime)   The Victoria Consort sang Palestrina's Mass for Pope Marcellus (a three week pope... wonder who he'd upset?) and it was all fab.   Then we went home, dropping Ned off at the Chapel in Broadstairs - it was late, nearly time to go to MN's Reveillon... but still time to wrap the last present.  Everything felt very unhassled.

The Reveillon was nice - MN had prepared a nice fishetarian table... I nibbled a few things, gorgeous mince pies... almonds in the pastry.  I felt a bit shy, I didn't know many of the people there - but I began to talk to C - a man with a reputation for being boring.  I discovered he wasn't actually boring - but he doesn't take any interest in his interlocutor and is happy to talk ceaselessly about his own experiences and impressions - perhaps that is the definition of boring - but he was talking about Beijing and the Catholic Church and one or two other interesting topics.  We came home at about 2 am and slept in until 10 - we had stockings, coffee, then breakfast in the dining room.  Then I did the usual preparations on the turkey etc. and we went down to the beach.  It was a lovely sunny day and a large tranche of Ramsgate was there - I saw a number of my particular friends - Ann, Kirstie, Anette, Sue - from afar - as well as others whom I like but know less well - Jacqui, Ruth R, plus all the associated husbands and partners.  I also spotted Clifford the rabbi strolling on the strands - so went to say Happy Christmas to him - not sure if that was taking ecumenism too far... returned home slightly tipsy (terrible parking!) and then finished preparations - we opened our very lovely and much appreciated pressies: Finn had bought me a book and a CD I had asked for, while Ned had chosen me a very nice cotton multicoloured scarf... "from a hippy shop" in Norwich.  Mark had found a cut glass bowl in a charity shop - which was v nice - as well as a cardigan and some chocolates.   His originality this year ran to some make-up from TK Maxx in my christmas stocking - white eye shadow, blue mascara and a rather tawny blusher (I have never owned or used blusher before, since I have naturally rather pink - red cheeks.)

Christmas dinner was rather delicious and the fridge door crisis was dealt with calmly and smoothly.  Ned and Finn were both helpful and co-operative and did lots of little things nicely.  We all enjoyed the Lamingtons although I feel they are not mega enough to be Christmas pudding... Ned said he would have preferred sticky toffee pudding - so perhaps I will oblige later in the hols - for New Year Day perhaps.

We watched telly by the fire and ate chocs.

On Boxing Day we got up - did chores and at 3 went for a short walk at Pegwell Bay.  The sun was setting, there were flocks of lapwings on the shoreline and we could see some seals' heads bobbing about at the mouth of the Stour... very beautiful - until 4 mini-hovercrafts came roaring across the bay and up the river creating a great deal of noise for about 5 minutes.  There were huge flat topped clouds in the S-West - heading for us.   In the night a great storm blew up - it was very windy - and still is, but they say it will calm down soon.  We have been less badly effected than some people.   Another storm is expected next week.

All in all we have had rather a good Christmas - today is a day of chores and then my family will descend like vultures.  So far we have been getting on well, and doing what's expected of us and it has been unusually harmonious.

The Luxury of Hope

Hope is a very widespread, commonly available commodity - it's cheap - cheap as words, or any other cheap thing.   It's widely considered to be a good - it's a cardinal virtue after all.  Christian hope is fine - it's a religious/spiritual thing - the hope of the life to come - and it doesn't damage our everyday lives.  If, God forbid, our hope for the life to come is going to be disappointed, well, it will be too late to do anything about it.

However, I am not talking about the religious aspects.  Obama called one of his books "The Audacity of Hope" - and that suggests a certain amount of courage is required to hope in the material world.   A different type of hope entirely really.   When I think of all the things I hoped for as a teenager/young woman - political things, changes in society that have come about - greater gender equality, acceptance of homosexual relationships, greater racial integration, various changes in attitudes - these have all come to pass.  There are plenty of other things I hoped for - a greater awareness of and action on the environment, an unbending of the Catholic church (that may be happening now - but...), greater social equality, better education for the less aspirational members of society - these are things that have not come to pass - we continue to argue for them and campaign for them with varying degrees of enthusiasm.   The disappointment of those hopes does give some heartache (especially the Church weirdly - because it concerns me more personally I suppose).

I remember coming across the line in the Bible "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick" when I was about 30-31 - I was in the terrible depression that followed my divorce and it struck me as terribly, immediately true.  So much hope had had to be deferred - chiefly any hopes of a new relationship.  I began to think about it again this year, when the endless disappointments of the novel piled up.   I had been justified in hoping, I had had a "good agent" interested in my work - it felt like what I ought to have, it felt "right" - but I was wrong.  Was I wrong - or was it the faculty of hope within me that had mislead me.  A rational response might have been to find the statistics, work out the likelihood of being taken on, getting publiished etc.   - and yet, I couldn't.   I also need to point out to myself that within a couple of years of finding that quote from Proverbs, I had a new meaningful relationship, and was on my way to marriage and family life.  I can only hope (???) that a similar pattern is involved in the current situation.

At this time of year it's traditional to think about one's hopes for the new year, as if a change in the dates will bring some sort of change in one's existence...But with the prospects not very different is it worth it?  I have had plenty of hopes deferred (or for all I know, completely smashed) and my heart is, fundamentally, pretty sick.   And that's the thing about these hopes - have they just been deferred - or have they actually been destroyed?   Adam Phillips says that sometimes you can want something too long.  That has certainly happened with one or two things I have hoped for.  But one can't tell, unless one has destroyed one's own hopes, whether one's hopes are now completely futile.  Of course, when it comes to a relationship, or a career prospect one can go on hoping and it's not always obvious that one is basically fucked.

My life will probably get better - it's just the cyclical nature of life - the wheel of Fortune... there are certain (financial) expectations that will probably be realised eventually - when my father dies (unless we spend it all on nursing homes!), ditto M's mother.  But as for the creative/emotional aspirations - who can say?  I think given my slightly wavery mental state, I cannot currently indulge in the luxury of hope since I cannot afford the consequences of disappointment.  I am therefore striving towards a steady state policy in the new year: keep on keepin' on - we can grind on with little bits of dosh here and there - the major debts are paid and we can just cope for a while.  I will write as hard as I can, and submit as hard as I can - and perhaps the square wheel can finally be pushed over to its next side.

Christmas - so far..

Well, the season to be jolly has been jolly hard work this year.  Our fiscal preoccupations have somewhat suppressed our inclination to sparkle just now.  The first party was on 7th December, I went reluctantly, having felt very gloomy that day.  I stayed and drank for hours and saw two or three close friends and mostly talked to them... so it was nice, but I failed to be completely on "party mode" until I had drunk rather a lot.  I came home and the next thing I knew it was morning - and I was wasting Sunday with a hangover!  Ah well, I got up eventually and life went on.

We have had some relief since my father has lent me some money, Mark has been selling things on E-bay, I have done some babysitting, some shopkeeping and some care home work and made a massive £60 - plus nearly £50 for cakes and puddings... so trickles of money keep coming in thank God.

Yesterday was M's birthday - so we had the traditional feast - a bit down on last year's grandeur... due to illness our only guest was Stella - my birthday pres to M was not to respond to her provocations.  I did fairly well. I notice she is having real trouble with her memory for words - quite a number seem to evade her - it was very noticable and worrying.  She is talking about moving to Cardiff... she also said her will divides everything equally, which is a relief...if she moved to Cardiff we'd be unlikely to see her, but she does prefer Flora's girly family to our boy-based unit.  She is puzzled by Finn's surliness - would like to see him smile.  She approves of Ned, but chiefly we heard about how great the Jay boys were.  Not difficult to be great when you have so much affluence and freedom in your life.  Not fair to compare Finn with them, he's 16 and difficult - they are all over 20.    The other factor is that they both know she's been unpleasant to me and are taking sides.  Obviously it's nice to have one's children on one's side - but not if they are being unfair to someone else.

I seem to remember that last summer she was a bit unpleasant to me - but I'm not bothered now. M and the boys are still cross on my behalf.  I think I said I would never entertain her again, but of course I couldn't do that.  It would be cruel to keep an increasingly frail 88 year old away from her grandchildren - but you do understand how these rifts occur in families.  All it needs is one person to be mildly offensive and one person to take deep offence - a magical, and frequently found combination.  So I suppose I can say that my contribution to the Christmas spirit is the hospitality I'm giving her.

I had quite a long chat to her last night about nothing in particular.  She has few interests outside her family - and unfortunately I don't share that interest - I like to hear about various people such as Minna, and Dora - and I am curious about the developments, but the showing-off elements repel me.  Last night she was bragging about her brother John, who died of alcoholism basically.  She is frantically trying to re-write history - death due to hospital malfeasance is her preferred version.  He was very glamorous and I "would have loved him" - I said I probably wouldn't have, since I didn't really like action men, I preferred thoughtful, academically inclined men.  Then she said "he married a dreadfully dull parson's daughter" - actually the daughter of a cathedral cannon, but the urge to put down is never far away!  "Parson" being a particularly subtle haute-bourgeois insult - it means "Low Church" and therefore v.v. ungrand - not a gentleman.   And clearly untrue... sigh!   Despite her devotion to his memory she has very little devotion to his children - claiming the daughter "got out of coming to the funeral" because she "claimed to be looking after her mother" - she couldn't come to our Tom Taylor fest either for the same reason.  Stella also repeats the canard that John's son is not really his... despite his remarkable family resemblance to various people.  I really like him, he's a nice chap, and his wife is lovely too.  S is also rather proud of her family's apparent commitment to rudeness and disdain.

So, when I say I have committed myself to the Christmas Spirit - it hasn't been totally easy... but I have done my best, and now I have undone it all again by moaning about her.

Next items on the agenda: a drink (I hope) with Jane, when she comes to collect her cake - and then we're all (the 4 of us) going to see the Hobbit film.  Pizza tonight - and then tomorrow two parties - an hour or so at the care home (Sheree is carefully organising it) - and then over to S&K's.  We were also invited to drinks at A's - it is his birthday - but we can't do that too...so perhaps he will come and eat with us on Monday.  

I am looking forward to Christmas Eve this year - we are going to go to carols and the Latin Mass at St. Pugin's - then later go to the Reveillon at MN's - a nice group of chums and a few post-church drinks and snacks.  Lovely idea - can't stay out too late though!

Births, marriages & deaths...

This is a bit misleading, I'm not really including the whole gamut - there has been a birth recently, S & L's grand-daughter, which is lovely.  Not many marriages either - middle age precludes that.  But deaths, yes, plenty of those.   There used to be a column in The Oldie which reviewed memorial services, until Ned Sherrin, the reviewer lui-meme died.  I can imagine that a blog of funeral reviews might be a goer!  Book offers come tumbling in!  Perhaps I should start going to some more, purely in a critical capacity.

On Friday I took my father to my 2nd cousin A's funeral in Nottinghamshire.  My father loves seeing his family - but he does have some outdated notions about family: he asked me "So, who is the head of the family now?"  I suppose that was the person he felt he ought to address his condolences to.  His memory is appalling... I reminded him who A was - that we'd been to her wedding, she'd been to my first wedding etc. etc., daughter of his cousin N etc.   I was a bit worried as he didn't seem to be taking it in.  However, during the homily in which the vicar discussed A's life and achievements, my pa suddenly realised who she was actually - the person she had  been,  whom he had known and liked, which was a relief.

I am making him a chart of all the cousins we know on that side of the family, which he can keep by the phone for the next funeral phone call.

This was a lovely funeral, because although A's death was sad, and she hadn't quite made the three score years and ten, she had chosen treatment which would end her suffering rapidly - when it was clear that the cancer treatment hadn't worked.  As someone said "Who needs to go to Switzerland really?!"  So there was a feeling that it had been her choice - and that was calming and satisfying in its way.   But I don't wish to suggest it was as dry-eyed as Edward's funeral.  There had been no stupid efforts to diminish the emotional content.  A hymn like Abide with me is full of emotion - and there was a reading which the reader had to control themselves to read, a slightly broken tribute from a son-in-law - one-liners from the grandchildren.

The most moving thing was that the coffin was carried by family members, her brother, her son and son-in-law and I think a nephew.  It was not a smooth performance but it was terribly touching, the sense of the last kindly act that one can do for someone.  It was a very "proper" funeral - allowing one all the catharsis one needed, the sense of the fragility of life, and each generation passing away, and a new generation rising to follow them - to consider how one would be remembered, for what, and for how long.  All these are very fundamental human questions - and tend to lead one towards melancholy - if not down right misery!

There was a considerable amount of sobbing from one of A's  much younger work colleagues.  I was interested, I spoke to her parents later, but didn't get any insight.

After the funeral service the close family (there are a lot of them) went to the crematorium - we went with everyone else to the deli/cafe in a former theatre - we sat and had coffees and teas until we were urged to eat by the staff.   It made me smile, this always seems to be a feature of cremations - the family disappear to the crematorium, down winding country lanes, while the friends sit wondering at what point it will be permissible to descend on the ham sandwiches without looking like a complete gannet.  The first people to eat were rather apologetic, but we joined the queue and I pointed out that if we all waited until the family came back there would be an unseemly rush to the buffet as low blood-sugared ravenous monsters squabbled over the quiches.

Obviously the social side of the funeral was important, we got to sit with a nice group of people and had some great conversations, and then later I saw various cousins who we haven't seen for ages.  I talked to A's sister M for a long time - she's really nice, and I enjoyed hearing about her work - she has done various things, but I was especially interested in the psycho-sexual conselling she'd done... and how satisfying it was to see people change and the energy get unleashed.  Oh dear, perhaps I should try and unleash some of my energy... maybe that's the answer.  M said she would invite us to the next summer garden party - it's great that she's doing that.  We also agreed rather grimly that we would probably be seeing more of each other at funerals in the not too distant future.   Oh dear.  

The care home

I haven't written about the care home, or rather I have, elsewhere.  I have been doing a few hours work in a local care home for adults with mental health problems.   These are the people who would have been institutionalised in mental hospitals years ago - not in our great care in the community culture they are institutionalised in care homes.   Some of them are more institutionalised than others.

The whole experience has been both shocking and delightful.  A few weeks ago I did my first lone session with them - half an hour with the dementia ward, and about 45 minutes with the others.  The dementia ward are apparently happy with a few verses of the hokey-cokey, a game of catch, a game of quoits and some half remembered songs :  "Who knows a song with a man's name in?"   "Henery 8th" so we drag out as much of it as we can remember (it's a miracle to me how much we do remember - were were singing "Lily of Laguna" the other day, I didn't even know I knew it).  Then I went over to the others, did some word games, and finishing lines - and some bits of songs - and left them wanting more... I left and sat in the car and felt really exhilarated.  I had been jumping about during the catch game and making them laugh - and singing and doing silly voices... they love it if I do a line of Shakespeare in a melodramatic voice  Hamlet, I am thy father's ghost, doomed to walk this earth... I've probably misquoted.  I loved it, because I had briefly made them happy, amused them.  And they are not happy, and doing that, if only for half an hour, was great.  But it was also hard work.  I am a very sociable person, I enjoy conversation - but there is an intensity in this situation - one has to be so careful - I can be only a limited version of myself, punches have to be pulled.

In some ways it's easy, they are adults, but their tastes are those of children on the whole - I needn't worry about whether they will have heard about Marx's theory of surplus value, or Montaigne's essays - and whether they'll think I'm pretentious if I mention them.  They won't have, and I won't mention them.  Nevertheless, it's a strain trying to hold oneself back - and also they have needs, and they are sensitive hurt, sometimes angry people - one can't go in and "perform" one has to engage with them.  And that's the work - what I'd really like to do is just go in and visit them.  Not be jumping about all jazz hands and jokes - and yet, yet, I love to make them laugh - I love it more than making anyone else laugh - because it's so rare and special.  If I don't go in, I can't do that.  

There is a very sickening reason for not going in though - it can be a bit boring.  Of course I do boring things all day - unpaid, so doing something boring for money ought to be more palatable.  Then again, once I begin to know them I can see which of them will begin to annoy me... and how will I stop this?  And I find it extremmely hard that I often can't understand what they are saying - their voices are often slurred - from their medication, or because they are lacking in the tooth department.

I am learning something about myself - there will be more work eventually - but not a 3.5hour session on a Friday afternoon.  I am learning something about my employer too.  She is a boss - and making the transition from a friend to her employee is difficult.  I suspect she would like me to do volunteering for some of the projects I do with her - but I am pretty adamant at the moment that I am not giving up precious time for free just now. I need to send off half a dozen submissions before the end of the month - and then get on with decorating the house for Christmas (papering the hall, painting the doors, putting up the curtain, repainting the bathroom etc.).

Hopping mad

Not really, I can walk - just not too much, and today I got through without a lie down to rest my foot.  No x-ray results until Monday - but my GP has given me penicillin because I said it felt like an abcess - it does, it's like a toothache in my foot.  It is fading, and I am not taking too many painkillers now.   I have spent the last couple of days more or less at the desk as usual - doing things for Architectural Archaeology, re-working the website text.  I should have just started from scratch - the trouble is I was editing M's format, which was his spontaneous choice... I didn't really think about it critically - fortunately, our website guru Rosemary did.

I realised this morning that I hadn't prayed for more work for a while.  I have basically accepted that there won't be any work before Christmas - and we are going to have to get by with loans from the boys... oh dear.  I won £25 on the lottery this week though, which is something.  We had a proposed visitor for 10 days, who has now changed her mind apparently.  I was offered a little bit of work on Friday, but don't think my foot will be up to it, also I just didn't feel I could quite face 3.5 hours of it.

But, latet anguis in herba...

...yes, the opera was fab, and the seats perfect, although my foot was a bit sore.  I woke up yesterday with sharp pains in it - and today my foot is in agony.  I can barely move it.  I managed to walk downstairs earlier, with difficulty - but I don't know what the hell's wrong with it.

I was hoping to capitalise on the joy of last night, by doing some bulb planting and tidiying up, followed by a social visit to Albion House... and I couldn't go.   Nothing seems to help, because if I alter my foot posture it is agony again for some time, until it settles down.  Even lying with it up on a pillow isn't very comfortable - nothing is.

An X-ray is necessary I think.

L'elisir d'amor - and bliss!

I was "quite transported" the other night, since on Saturday we went to the opera - the Glyndeborne touring company, at Canterbury - sat in the stalls thanks to dear Anna T who bought us these to "compensate" for the appalling seats we had when we saw "Nozze di Figaro" in the spring.  I had never seen L'elisir before, the only Donizetti I know is Lucia di Lammermoor - a different thing entirely.  I suppose it's a melodramma or dramma tragica?  whereas L'elisir is dramma iocosa... thus illustrating how Donizetti et al benefited from Rossini's opening up of the the strict categories of opera, so that composers could write in different styles.... but I digress (I must get some benefit from all that work I did on Rossini).

The production was stunning in so many ways - design, set etc. brilliant, lighting, and the setting - Fascist Italy with strutting Belcore and preening blackshirts... very clever.  Nemorino was played as a sort of Charlie Chaplin figure - pathetic and lucklustre, with a certain charm.  It really is a clever little piece, a melange of folk-tale elements and social comedy - the ancient rivalry between the farmer/peasant and the soldier (Far from the Madding Crowd might have borrowed some of its plot).

Surtitles make all the difference, because even a decent knowledge of Italian doesn't make it possible to follow it word for word - consonants get lost when words are sung - even by native Italians.  The singing was good - the chorus was fab (Glyndeborne really go for choruses - which is why the tickets are so expensive I suppose) and lots of amusing business - almost too much in places.  But it is genuinely a funny opera, and well acted, and the Dulcamara character is terrific.  I just loved it, and was sitting there, really enjoying it.  We had a drink beforehand and a drink at the interval and a good chat afterwards.  Anna had two tickets spare, because her boys didn't want to come, so we dragged Clare along and Anna & R brought Julia - who piquantly is the first wife of the naughty choirmaster... his current squeeze approached us during the interval to say "hi" and I wasn't sure whether to introduce Julia to her or not, as I'd only just met Julia I wasn't sure of the etiquette - but J soon proved to be a mensch and a really nice woman.  I liked her almost immediately, and Clare pounced to exchange views on the miserable lives of the Cathedral choristers.  For once Mark and I had landed on Planet Agreeable, and all it had cost us was petrol, parking and a round of drinks....

And, I want to put on record, it was absolutely lovely to see Robin who was, I thought, on really good form... and not a gibbering wreck as we had been told...

Astro-bollocks, but persuasive

Obviously it is the deep uncertainty of life that has driven me to astrology... but I do read the Bible as well... and the other day I suddenly remembered that there is a point in the birthchart called the Pars Fortunae or the Part of Fortune - in my case it is located in my 5th house - at 8 degrees 55 Aries... perhaps it is simply a coincidence that this is the point around which Uranus has been reversing for the last week or so.   It might well give one the "human pinball" feeling - as one bounced from one unwelcome surprise to another.  I never took much notice of it before - although I have always been pleased that it is located in the house of creativity, children and lurve... and perhaps the so-called Arabian parts should not be taken much notice of, but it is an interesting coincidence.

The bad news is that it will continue this messing about until mid-February - when it will travel away, at the same time it has been trine Venus... so perhaps this very long transit, which will finally be ending, will restore some sort of solid continuity.   Can I cope with another 2 months of this?  Well yes, probably....as long as it really does stop then.

Wondering whether I should re-dedicate this blog to astrology?  Perhaps I would get more readers.... advertising even.... money even.  A blog called Astro-bollocks? Might be of interest.

A note from March 2014.
Well - things are fiscally and generally better - although the rollercoaster hasn't stopped, I can see there maybe a day coming when things will clear up a bit.   Pity Uranus didn't give me some nicer surprises, but it's beetling off now and will soon be linking up with Saturn - which could be a bit more positive (I hope!).

There is a lesson in this! - Saturn returns

Had a lovely evening yesterday - even though we talked about ghosts and seeing things or feeling things generally.  Tara seems to see anything that's ghostly - in our house she spotted a "vicar" with long flowing white collar leaning against the chimneypiece.  He must be one of the Wesleyans that lived here, if so he is probably apalled by the strong language and strong drink that are taken here.

We also had a brief discussion about Saturn returns - so what I am about to say is perhaps a bit confused, because (a) I haven;'t arrived at my Saturn return yet - (b) Saturn is currently in my first house, in my birthchart it is in my 2nd house.  The idea of a Saturn return - I thought - was that it was a period of consolidation, of getting established in someway.  One's first Saturn return is often a time when people get married - 28-30. It is a time when one enters adult life fully.  The second one - which I expect to experience from November 2015 to December 2016 - is apparently the time when one reaches maturity.   Now, because Saturn is 2nd house I would expect it to be about money - but it seems to me that I am getting plenty of money lessons now - so I suspect that the Saturn return in my case will be a time when some of our financial matters will finally stabilise - or the lessons will have been learned.   I do hope that doesn't mean I will have to wait another 2 years for financial stability.  However Saturn enters the 2nd house a bit sooner than that - in January 2014 - so I will have to hope for some improvements then.   I suppose the symbolism of having Saturn in the second house is that one has to learn a lot of lessons through money... some say it is bad thing, some that it's a good thing... I don't know.  But perhaps, just perhaps, it will mean the end of the line, a time when I have finally learned not to waste money, not to have flashes of extravagance.   On the other hand, I would say my behaviour around money is pretty Saturnian just now.  Heavy, leaden restraint. I am usually on the case - although I still blench at the idea of looking at the bank statement, and would rather hide my head in the sand than look at some of the letters that arrive for us.  But eventually I do deal with them, although they seem to be very hard work.

So perhaps with my S return will come fiscal maturity - and money?  I live in hope - just another year or two of rejections then...I'm learning the lessons now so that I don't squander it all at once when it comes.

Human pinball

You know how pinball machines are - the ball careers around, slamming against different objects and rebounding, all the time drifting gradually downwards, then a frail flipper catches it and repells it - sending it back up again - and then around, on a different trajectory - drifting down again - and it continues until eventually the flipper fails and the ball disappears into the darkness.

That's me that is!   The downward trajectory has been marked in the last few weeks, with the complete absence of any job prospects at all for Mark - apart from the distant prospect of Jam in the form of the HLF bid - which we may or may not be included in, may or may not win etc.   However, a frail flipper protruded and gave me a tiny shove upwards, and, I thought the prospect of an exiguous - but welcome - regular income.  However, this flipper has now failed, apparently I was only be trained to do holiday cover.  This it must be said was never made clear to me, until yesterday, when I asked when I might next be required to work.  So I am careering off again, striking different objects, and wondering why a period of my life that astrologically speaking was said to be full of new opportunities, seems to be one actually of cul-de-sacs...

Others have worse situations!

Actually, this has been a bit of a disastrous period for a number of people I know - two of Finn's friends have lost their fathers young in the last few months, and one of them's mother has been killed by her father, last week.  There's the Philippines hurricane of course, and two people have had diagnoses of dreadful diseases - and only this morning my elderly cousin M has spent an evening in A&E - not good, and Anna's mother is very very ill. These things do occur in clusters - and I should be grateful that I'm not too close to all this.  

Another gentle flip up...

Since I wrote the above I've had a flip up - and found that instead of earning £24, I've earned £80 and Mark has earned £40 for something he did on a volunteer basis a couple of weeks ago.  This is a very nice surprise - so I am flipping upwards again - and will start crashing about again shortly.

My life as a medieval peasant

There is something medieval about trudging through the woodlands, carrying a sack (in this case an enormous plastic sack from John Lewis, rather than a hempen sack woven by my goodself) and gathering kindling for the fire, we also found a few larger bits of firewood - but for substantial pieces you have to go to the industrial estates and raid the skips - there are usually cast-off pallets being thrown out.  

I have always thought that our weird lifestyle - working from home, having a "family business" in which I occasionally labour etc., had elements of a medieval lifestyle.   This year with the decline of the central heating and our need to shroud ourselves in ever thicker shawls, jumpers, cloaks, we are looking decided medieval.   Stick gathering is just the outward sign of our grim lifestyle - increasing amounts of porridge, lentils and beans are other factors!

What I achieved today

I got up, bottled my quince jelly, then prepared the quince liqueur I'm making.  Then I finished my entry for the Bookseller's essay competition - not a hope in hell, but a great essay anyway!

Then I discovered I didn't have to do Deer Park - but took stuff over to Sheree, and then went to a supermarket to buy useful things like tea and bacon, and then to the farm shop for a vast sack of spuds.  When I came home M and I went to Chatham to have a meeting about Finn - which was a bit tricky, because Finn was being tricky.  We went home for tea, and I let F go out for half an hour to have a smoke.  Then he helped me defrost the freezer - after 3 years I suspect!  And then I photographed the ice pile and had jolly banter on FB.

So, although I haven't made any money today (I did investigate selling books on Amazon), I have done some literary work, some family/emotional work, and some domestic work, and some pre-Christmas preparations and had a bit of a social time.  So all good really!  Now, cook supper and have a drink with a quiet conscience.

Unfortunately I was not allowed to enjoy my quiet conscience, my gin, my supper, my coffee or my evening, because Finn, enraged at being grounded until he tidied his room spent a great deal of time snarling at me and bullying and cajoling me to unground him.  It was really horrible - no amount of speaking to him about it would deal with the problem, eventually M sacrificed his evening to cleaning up with Finn - I don't feel good about that either.  What an unpleasant end to a constructive day.

A dream of bungalows - and emptiness

I think I've had this dream before, I was in a place - some sort of garden centre, but the end of the plot was filled with bungalows - they were rectangular, flat-roofed structures, that seemed to be made out of plywood - painted yellows and creams,  with contrasting coloured window frames. More like over-sized Wendy houses or seaside chalets than real houses They were shuttered up and empty - and they were very 1920s-30s in appearance.  Additionally they were jammed together with no gardens.  There were gravelled alleys up the side, if you went up this they would end in another bungalow running paralell, blocking the view.  Occasionally behind the bungalows through a sort of hoarding with glass, you could glimpse an old swimming pool, which was empty.  For some reason I withdrew rapidly from the sight of this, it upset/frightened me.

The swimming pool was built on a grand scale, with brick arches around the inside of the pool - but I couldn't see the bottom from where I stood.  I knew it had been built for the bungalow people, as an amenity - but I worried that now that it had been emptied it would decay.  Further around I caught another glimpse of it, this time I could see some men at work on the ground nearby, and saw that the bottom of the pool, which was rounded at this point, contained a round, dark pool of muddy water.   I walked away from the bungalows, and back towards the garden centre, where there was a small lawn between the paths, with two large tree ferns, one a conventional one, one with pink spotted leaves.  A mother was saying proudly to her small son "That's the one we've got in our garden - a dicksonia grandiflora".  I thought that was strange because ferns do not flower (or not in any obvious way).

This was such a depressing dream that I woke up.  To me it seems obvious - houses usually represent oneself, but all these houses are "dead" - uninhabited, closed up, they are about the past - the sense of a once-thriving holiday community that's closed up and gone, abandoned.  The swimming pool is presumably one's emotional life - it's drained, empty apart from a muddy mess - I found beauty and relief in seeing the grass and the ferns, but even there I was reminded of a sort of sterility.  The woman with the child is perhaps me too, with a little boy, trying to teach him - "our garden" being the sense of the miniature paradise one tries to create in a family.

It is true - there is a part of me that feels very emotionally drained - and shutting myself up in some ways is how I deal with it - but this horrible sense of sterility - a lack of life.  Perhaps the green space was reminding me that family life was worthwhile - a source of growth.  At the moment, Finn's depression and so on make it hard for me to cope with anything.  I have been concentrating on dealing with the creditors one by one, and raising money where I can.  

The cold begins

Today was the first day I have felt cold all day, at least until I went into the kitchen at lunchtime.  I feel proud that I didn't turn on the fan heater - but the tip of my nose is cold, and my fingers.  Perhaps I should have done more typing.

We turned the heating on, morning and evening only, at the end of October when we had a BnB guest.  She left, but we kept the heating on.  Finn has stopped complaining about it - he has finally got it that we don't have it on all the time.  I have put it on during the day for visitors, but mostly we are managing by closing doors, more layers etc.  This won't last of course, it will get so cold that we won't be able to manage.  And I guess over the Christmas hols we will have it on a bit more.

I discovered that EDF the energy company offers poor customers a discount of £150 - this is great, unfortunately, our monthly bill is £230 - so £12.50 a month won't  make very much difference to us.   But I am aware that we can still do more to keep warm - I could, for example, wear boots rather than shoes, and get the thermal leggings on -  but I am keeping them for a really serious cold snap.

There really is nothing more we can do at present - but soon we will go out around the skips to find wood for the fires.  And perhaps, weather permitting, to the woods to get kindling.

Love, life and death

A friend of mine's husband died today.  He was 90 and had been ill for several years, and getting worse, so it was a blessing.  He was an old miner, he'd lost an arm in a pit accident - he was a traditional trade unionist, a socialist of the kind one now feels are passing away.  She once told me he was a womaniser - and he certainly had a bit of residual twinkle whenever I saw him.

They are the mysterious couple who stay together forever and she is about 85 I think - she really looked after him in the last years - hardly going out unless she could get one of their children to sit with him.  I dare not ask if she'd always loved him when I talk to her - their marriage was certainly eventful... they had 4 children - or was it 6 - I've never met any of them, but I've heard so much about them, although I'd be hard put to say which was which.

It's quite symbolic, dying at midday on the day of the solar eclipse - new moon.

While he was dying I was chatting with the local rabbi - and a lovely woman who runs the Montefiore Society - but chiefly the rabbi about why Jews weren't bothered about the afterlife... he said, inter alia, that looking for the afterlife was a poor reason for living an ethical life.  I think that's true - although I believe it's something.   He also told me a great many interesting things - a generally unbelieveably fascinating conversation.  He also told me some terrible stories about going on a tourist coach around Israel, where the bulk of the passengers were American Fundamentalists... at one point the guide - an Israeli - mentioned the apostle Jacob - then swiftly corrected himself to James - the American were ruminating on this, so the rabbi turned around and said "You know - Jacob is the hebrew name for James - that's why the followers of King James were called Jacobites".... blank looks, grumbling "Well, I've never heard anyone else say that before..." and general expressions of disbelief.   "At that point we decided we weren't going to bother with trying to educate them"... there were other anecdotes that made one wonder whether these people were of normal intelligence.

Love - yes, I was going to say something about Love too.  I was going to mention that in the last couple of days the pesky Love Object has been flittering into my brain again. I fear we will be seeing each other at one funeral or another within the next year.  I really haven't thought about him at all sometimes for days - which is a relief.  For some reason since seeing him in April (or was it May) I've not thought about him so much, perhaps because that meeting answered some of my questions about him - and I feel able to shelve him.  I'd love to see him again of course, but I don't look forward to the events which will precipitate such a meeting.

Society of Authors meeting

These are usually great fun, and Monday night's was no exception.  Unusually we met in the Astor Theatre, Deal - which has, I discovered a lovely bar - so if I ever want to go somewhere for a quiet drink on a Monday night, that's the place.

I went in a really miserable mood - feeling down about finances, there are two threads to this: one is the struggle to make up the deficit each month, the other is to keep track of our 8 creditors - and stop them all taking us to court.  But that is neither here nor there.    I was miserable on the way there because the petrol was low and the first garage was closed and I feared this might be a result of the storm.  However, the Pegwell Bay garage was open.   And the car park at the theatre was free so I had a whole fiver!

I was immediately cheered by a burst of applause when I arrived and lots of compliments about my hair. Got a drink and a plate of food and gradually dissolved.  It was a bit difficult to talk because the room was echoey with hard surfaces - eventually Mary Kenny, who had organised the evening, got us to go around talking about branding ourselves as writers.  It was an interesting discussion and I made the odd contribution... but I fear I am becoming renowned for my "talk" and not really saying much.  Everyone was so nice and positive and supportive, and I was instructed to get myself published.  Three options were suggested, novel-writing competitions, on-line serialisations (e.g. Wattpad) and the general self-publishing path - everyone promised to write me reviews on Amazon if I did... well, I suppose if it means little dribbles of money are coming in it might be better than nothing.

Anyway, it's always interesting to hear about how other people are faring - and the general tone was fairly positive, although at the same time, it's obvious that most of us aren't making absolutely buckets of money from it.

Storytelling

We went out to a "Day of the Dead" storytelling evening tonight, at the Theatre Royal in Margate - it was a mixed bag - but mostly pretty enjoyable.  There was a good Ben Heggarty story about the emotions playing hide-and-seek on the 7th day of creation.  There was a Russian story about a demon lover, a Mexican story (also Ben Heggarty) about a boy who has Death as his Godmother, a Hodja story, a story that sounded E. European, about an old man who manages to remember enough to delay death a few months, so that he can feed all the birds over the winter (Tim something), a story about a graveyard where people's age is measured by the number of wonderful moments in their lives - an Emily Parrish story about Durga/Kali - which was quite striking, a great African story about a talking head.  It was pretty good - people were struck by the very vivid song at the end about Worms - a variation on the song I knew as a child

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
Crawl in your ears and out your mouth,
They call their friends, their friends come too
You're a heck of a mess when they get through

I probably would have enjoyed it more had I not had some bad news today.  But that's another story.

Awaiting the storm

Since yesterday the media have been full of reports about the great storm that is about to hit the UK - c. 2 am tomorrow morning - this will be nearly a hurricane - so we are a bit worried about the roof.  Being at the seaside is always exciting, but it could be too exciting.  Then again, our roof seems to have survived a great many storms and is still pretty much intact.  So perhaps it's a tough old roof.  

There have been gleeful reports of possible horrors - power cuts being the first in my mind, and also people wondering whether the Met Office are making too much of a fuss.  I have tidied up the garden, and got everything that might fly loose out of the way.  Not much else we can do really.  It has been a beautiful day today - sunny, warm and very windy.  The sky has alternated between blue, grey clouds, white cloud and an extraordinary grey white glare whose brilliance made it almost impossible to look at.   The strange glaring grey sky, with a layer of grey cumulus running beneath it was extraordinary, the whole thing decidedly Turneresque...

There is a slightly fateful quality about this time - yesterday I received a lot of unwelcome news about new layers of crises in the lives of my beloved cousins - today our Hungarian visitor suddenly declared tearfully that she had had some terrible mysterious family news and had to leave. Nothing drastic has happened to us, apart from the traditional grumpiness about funds.  However, hearing other people's problems makes me feel how very little we have to complain about.

I was unable to take any photos today - but here is a picture which gives something of a taste of weather conditions in Ramsgate earlier on.

More Books

Am feeling abnormally pleased with myself (now - but don't ask me this at 4.30am tomorrow, when I will be feeling less chipper) because I have just re-drafted Conscience 1 - and stuck a couple of pages up on the book blog, and drawn people to them on FB and Twitter.  So far, so good.  Doing the right things for my tiny followership!

But I am feeling even more pleased because as well as writing in the last 2-3 weeks I have been reading even more books - FM Mayor's The Rector's Daughter, Collins's The Moonstone,  William Boyd's Waiting for the Sun Rise and am nearly through Chesterton's The Man who was Thursday.

I have always not bothered with Chesterton - he's one of the Church's secular saints whom I have been happy to ignore since he was a ghastly anti-semitic Tory of the worst sort.  I also dislike people being "romantic" about the Catholic church - they are usually blinkered to the truth - by all means love and adhere to the Church if you wish - but an uncritical or worse highly apologist approach just won't do.  However, I did quite enjoy the Father Brown stories when I was a child and I have a couple of people in my life who admire Chesterton so I assume there is more to like about him, and that my views are partial and prejudiced.
So in a spirit of open mindedness I began to read the book - and within a few paragraphs I felt it had an ugly, gloating tone - because of course it has a narrator - and the narrator is basically a smug, toad-like fellow who dislikes the modern world and all its cultural manifestations.  So the first part of the book is quite descriptive - then the action begins, and becomes more and more fast and furious - one sees what happens, his clue trail is a little pathetic, and [spoiler alert!] the idea that Sunday would be the same person as the man in the darkened room occurred to me very early on.  I have not quite finished - but I think I see what is going to happen, and sense that I shan't enjoy it as much as the end of Anna Karenina.   It hasn't (although I may change my mind when I finish it) made me think twice about Chesterton.   The Church however, is proposing to canonise him.  There seems to be an absolute mania to make saints out of unsuitable people at present.

Andrew Mitchell, the police, the media and lies

What now?  Who do we believe?  The police have been caught out telling porkies on a fairly regular basis - so why not about this?  The whole affair seems to have come down to what wing of the commentariat you are on - the right wing law and order mongers must be wrestling with themselves.  A Tory MP or the Police - like a squabble between your children - you don't want to take sides, but one of them must be lying?  How can you be disloyal to either? .   And on the left, the anguish of trying to decide which of them is the most repulsive: the Police surely - they have more power (I'm not saying Andrew Mitchell 7.0 is repulsive - although I have said that when I was younger there seemed to be a bit of a repulsion going on).

I'd come down on AM's side against the police, because they've got so much form - and evidently the power to affect the composition of the Cabinet.  This is terribly bad news.

On a larger question, I suppose my real fear is that we are being controlled by lies.  Obviously, to some extent we are, there are lies about the economy, about military and national issues.  Some of these are "necessary" perhaps, but I am thinking about a more specific thing - the manipulation of opinion, and of political life, by deliberate untruths.  However much we pride ourselves about our critical minds, about our inside knowledge of situations, it becomes difficult to resist the frequently repeated lie - that old adage about repeating lies louder and louder until everyone believes them is only too true.

The role of people who are effectively telling lies in the media is a troubling one.  Columnists are employed by papers who simply churn out untruths - such as Simon Hoggart in the Guardian who is obsessed with windfarms.  A lot of his "facts" seem doubtful, and he doesn't seem to understand that if we wish to protect the environment, certain forms of energy may be more expensive - it is the price we pay.

On climate change the BBC was being asked to defend its use of climate change deniers to comment on the issue - they said they had to use some occasionally, as they represented a minority amongst scientists.  Regrettably climate change denial is very common amongst non-scientists (that idiot Nigel Lawson) so every time a climate change denier appears in the media the 60% of the population who wish it wasn't true all say to each other "There - see - that geologist said this has all happened before!"  "Oh, well, that's all right then - my round I think."

Partly the problem is that for entertainment value, we need opinion - but because opinion occurs in newspapers it is easy to confuse it with news - when it is commenting on the news - and give it the status of fact... opinion is indeed cheap!

Panic over

It appears that I am unlikely to have VC - although there is still some sort of bruising/abrasion - and I have had a biopsy - but it doesn't look worrying.  So in theory all is well.  I just hope the bleeding incident was a one-off...  I will get the biopsy results in the next fortnight.

The Literary Cure: Books of the Month

I know novels have been regarded as escapist since the dawn of novels... but in the last year or so I have found it harder to escape into them, as I have become so critical and unable to read them.  I lost my favourite form of escapism and have had to make do with lesser forms of entertainment.    In the last few months however I have read several novels that performed the great trick for me... and I am delighted.  

In the last few weeks I have read Ann Patchett's excellent Bel Canto and Justin Cartwright's The Promise of Happiness, and have had the great pleasure of re-reading The Moonstone.   The number of classic novels I read as a teenager/young woman "for the story" and failed to notice how wonderfully and fearfully they were made is astonishing.  I adored the Moonstone - the different narrators were sheer genius - I especially loved Miss Clack and her tracts: "Satan Amongst the Sofa Cushions" was a wonderful title.  These books are all suitably impressive and humbling - I really thought they had something to say - and interesting ways of saying it.  Observations of how people behave in difficult situations.  Perhaps that's what's wrong with TRF - Lucy isn't really in a sufficiently difficult situation.  Re-write ideas are endlessly occurring to me, but in the mean time Seduction - which is my new working title for Conscience vol 1 - is taking new and improved shape. It is a fascinating exercise to track the sexual development of an inexperienced young woman who wants to enjoy sex, but has a somewhat buttoned up boyfriend in an era when middle class people didn't "do" sex before marriage.  I am now thinking of entitling the 3 novels: Seduction, Conscience, Evasion

Reading has been a wonderful release - but writing has generally made me happy.  This is what I ought to be doing, anything else is a distraction.

Rollercoaster

I was talking to a friend I bumped into and found myself becoming tearful - she looked away - to avoid having to deal with it?  Or coincidence?  It happened a second time during the conversation and this time she walked away to talk to someone else and I decided it was probably the former.  A bit of sympathy doesn't do any harm really.

I was upset because I discovered we had nearly spent all the money this month - and it's only 6th.   Oh great.  This means we will have to borrow November's money and hope for the best if we want to pay the mortgage.  It's partly because we had to tax the car, and I forgot to cancel the English Heritage payment - so we can now go to EH properties free for another year - in our car, if we can afford the petrol.

I am looking for work and not finding any.  People keep suggesting I start businesses - but I don't want to. It takes so much time to get a business going, I need small lumps of money now...  My right knee which I damaged when I was 18 in France has gone "out" again and is hurting.  I need physio, I was in terrible pain on Friday and most of Saturday, but eventually the pain subsided, and now it only hurts going downstairs or if I twist it.

We went to the Broadstairs food festival - which was great - but we spent £25 - which wasn't!  - on delicious food, for 4 of us so not a total disaster.

We walked back to the car, I couldn't cope with driving home.  Then I had some time to myself - I thought I would just get on with Conscience.   So I hunted down my threads of sub-plot and began to write them... I wrote quite a bit, had to change a cherished scene, but made it better... so now I feel quite confident about getting it sorted.  I wrote a fair few words - and I FELT BETTER.    

A short list - to be reviewed

I am beginning to think that my life has reached rock bottom - so of course I am singing to myself "Things can only get better...."  but perhaps I should make a list of all the things that are wrong with my life, in the hope that I can look at them in a month's time and review them and perhaps feel better about them.

1.  My work is getting nowhere and I am losing faith in it and by extension myself.
2.  I have stopped losing weight and am beginning to put it on again.
3.  Our financial situation is currently precarious and without further work soon will become unsustainable by Christmas.
4.  Finn is extremely depressed.
5.  Mark is unhappy.
6.  I am worried about my weird internal problem, and by my stiff thigh and wonky knee (one on each leg)
7.  I feel gloomy about several of my friendships/relationships
8.  Oh, is that all?

Now actually, it looks less bad.  Of course each of these categories has sub-categories of worry - within the debt worries are several subsidiary worries about different situations (Inland Revenue, benefits, etc).  And there are worries about things I should be doing - and have left undone.   I have taken a pledge to do something every day to improve finance, whether that's a job hunt, or trying to find ways of cutting expenditure - and of course to work on books.

I chose a photo at random from a file - this is what came out.  It's one of a series of beautiful plaques on the wall in a church at Romney - a good choice - a reminder of what I ought to be doing.  It is sometimes very hard to be thankful - but one must try.  Perhaps just "acting" thankful is the best one can do.

Google & the curse of curiosity

I woke up early this morning (Monday) worrying.  And after a while it occurred to me that if I had not googled my condition I would still be feeling fairly gung-ho about things, I would regard what they had seen as an anomaly but would be sure that everything would be all right.  I would worry that they wanted to see me so soon, and the possibility of cancer would have crossed my mind, but because I googled it now I am mentally writing farewell letters, sorting out my will and choosing music for my funeral... (well, I've been doing that for years).  And yet, I know that in the unlikely (?) event that it is VC - the most likely outcome is total recovery - the likelihood of my having the "other sort" is very unlikely - and I feel well (because I haven't started treatment yet?).

So what I hope is that - when they re-examine me they find the abrasion has faded to nothing, everything looks healthy again, and they decide it was something anomalous.  I want to tell people - but so far I've only told Mark, Finn and Marion.  I think if I tell everyone it may be something dramatic I will feel foolish if it turns out to be something innocent.

I can see that part of this issue for me is about getting attention - and if I have a serious disease, I am entitled to attention - in a way that I don't feel entitled most of the time.  But this is a topic for another place.

Other possibilities....

A little light research (clue: look up the treatments and that can lead you to the disease).   I discovered that there is a condition called vaginal epithelial neoplasia... in other words new growth on the epithelial tissue (which is not the same as skin - but the sort of material that covers internal organs, glands etc. ).  Again, I'm not quite sure whether this is the same as vaginal abrasion - or whether it should spontaneously throw out cups of blood occasionally.  However, the interesting thing about it is that (as I had suspected) in 80% of cases it is caused by human papilloma virus.

Many years ago the sexual partner who bashed about a lot had a case of genital warts - as a result of which I was forced to have annual cervical smears for many years, until it was deemed that I was safe - some years after we had ceased to be married.  Oh dear. I do hope this isn't a long delayed reaction, but yesterday I was thinking about all the possible things that could have caused it and I'm afraid J's genital warts did come to mind. I'm sure it can't be - it's way too long ago - 25 years probably since we last had sex - well - 23 years at the absolute minimum (I can't remember, but I think we did have some post-marital sex at some point).  Surely that can't be it.

Not fibroids - something worse?

WARNING: this entry describes female anatomy - men of a sensitive disposition may prefer not to read on. 

I had a scan today - there is not  a sign of fibroids... my womb is totally healthy... hurray.  But what is causing the bleeding?  After an uncomfortable encounter with a speculum (to think those women's health feminists used to use them for self-examination apparently quite cheerfully) the gynaecologist declared that I had abrasion at the top of my vagina.  "There is bruising there".  Once upon a time I had a long-standing sexual partner who seemed to think that size WAS everything - and used, unwittingly, to subject my interior to a considerable amount of bashing about.  I was young, I protested a bit, but not enough, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings.  I tried to encourage him to do things properly...rather unsuccessfully on the whole -  but that was twenty odd years ago now, so I don't think that was where the bruising came from.  Mr O - who seems older and more grizzled than when I met him last (as I would too, were it not for my hair appointment yesterday) said he would give me another seeing to with the speculum with a fortnight, but this time he would use a microscope to examine the cells in this abraded area.  He said this sort of thing usually happened to women who used vaginal pessaries (not guilty) or after an hysterectomy (ditto).  He expected he might do a biopsy with a local anaesthetic next time.   Did he have any idea?  "It's definitely not fibroids."  "It hasn't bled for several days" I said  "It's bleeding now"  he replied - true, he'd shown me a rusty red swab prior to shoving into its plastic test tube and sending to the Path Lab.

In the car on the way home I was upset.  I allowed a tear or two to escape from my stern countenance. They hadn't said cancer, but that was clearly on their agenda.  I had a quick prayer, told God I was willing to die, if time was up - said it really didn't matter about the books.  Said at least I'd had a few years since the last horror.  I realised that all my stuff about coming from a non-cancer family was just bravado, why should I be safe, just because there was no genetic tendency? - lots of cancer (most?) is environmental.    Then I told myself to stop being melodramatic - they hadn't said anything about cancer - this was all my imagination, I was channelling La Dame aux Camellias - hoping I would be able to retire to a chaise lounge while all my former lovers arrived to have poignant conversations with me (ou sont les neiges d'antan....)

When I got home at 11.00 I realised the reason my legs were shaking was probably low blood sugar, so I treated myself to a beetroot and herring wrap - since I need to stay healthy I suppose (or should I just give in now and take up a gin,pork scratchings and cake diet?).   Then I went to Google "vaginal abrasion" - and discovered it can probably be treated with cider vinegar and/or yoghurt (wrong website) - I hunted for a long time to find anything about it that was not about abrasion caused by rough sex.  I found it eventually, by searching for "cervical abrasion" - and bingo - a lovely BMA website - full of technical language which mercifully a classical education allows one to understand (I knew it would come in useful one day).  And that was where I discovered vaginal carcinoma.  

Cancer of the fanny - it's not exactly dinner party conversation is it?  This will be the kind of disease, if I prove to have it, which will be a bit hard to talk about without frightening the horses.  And you don't hear much about it because it's the most uncommon of the gynaecological cancers (so at least it's exclusive - in a way).  There are two kinds, a pretty unpleasant kind that kills people quickly, usually young girls, peak age 17-21.  So I probably don't have that sort, and the other kind - squamous cell carcinoma - better known in its manifestation as a common skin cancer - the slow-growing kind that you can have for years which metastatizes in the lungs or liver.  Well, I think we know what happens to people with liver cancer - but let's just wait.  

There is another slight possibility - skin thinning as a result of the menopause and lack of oestrogen.   But given that I was awarded the Queens Award for Industry for Services to Oestrogen production only 2 years ago that doesn't sound very probable..  despite being the proud possessor of a Mirena coil which is manfully pumping progestogen into me.

Fortunately although rare, the common form of VC (yes, I may be getting the VC for courage in the face of quotidian dreariness) is very treatable - but in any case I don't know it's that - it's just that I can't find any other condition where this abrasion occurs.  The good news is that if it is VC then there is actually a cream - can you believe it? - that works in the majority of cases.  Failing that internal and external radiotherapy (side effects - "burning sensations" - don't they just mean burning?).  At the last resort there is our old chum the radical hysterectomy (abeste profanes!) - but at the moment I'm telling myself "it will all be over by Christmas!".   I guess if they get going swiftly and I do need radiotherapy it could be complete by Christmas... 

Anyway, that's just the worst case scenario - perhaps this abrasion was the result of the hysteroscopy in December 2011? I was thinking of taking to my bed for the next few weeks after reading all this, but then I decided it would be a shame to spoil my energetic mood, so I ate some chocolate and carried on!

Brain de-tox from Betty Herbert

 This is a nice idea - having an autumn brain de-tox, Betty (whom I met last year, but don't know very well, despite having read the first chapter of a book about her sex life) has suggested doing several things on a daily basis, and another few things on a monthly basis.

On a daily basis she suggests : Read something*/meditate or write morning pages*/look at the sky*/get out of breath

Over the month: see a film you've always wanted to see*/spend an evening listening to music you really like*/visit an exhibition or an historical site*/take a long walk/do a crazy spontaneous thing*

This all sounds good - especially since I do most of these already (the ones I've asterisked) and actually, I do do spontaneous stuff - e.g. inviting people to dinner on a whim, signing up for a bagpipe workshop, etc - perhaps not often enough, but not so seldom.  So really, we are just looking at my regular life plus some exercise.

In a way I'm a bit disappointed, since I had hoped there would be a lot of cutting down on screen time involved, but there isn't.  The scheme is to start from Monday until 20th October and to see if one feels better.  I would like to up my reading - and writing, films are taken care of by LoveFilm - we are always going to exhibitions and historical sites... long walks, not so hot.  But perhaps we could do one over the weekend, weather permitting.  Across Stodmarsh from Grove Ferry to the Red Lion perhaps.

Not the last post...

Nah, not yet.   I was thinking of all the things I could blog about - but I have failed to remember any of them.  I am tired and lacking in passion - this does not make for a good blog.

Here are some of the topics I might have blogged about in the last few days:

The Pope's latest pronouncements "God Bless our Pope, the Great! The Good!"
The Nairobi massacre and its aftermath
Ed Milliband's speech
The terrible effect of writing on one's friends and family
Tom Taylor and his descendants
Life: is there any point?- with reference to an FB page...
Twitter - how to use it properly?  Is tweeting pert comments to agents really the way to get on in literature!
Taking a child to university
A Portuguese restaurant
Lovely weather
etc.

I am prepared to blog on demand - if you particularly wish to see my opinions and experiences on any of these topics let me know!

Last Blog

For the last few weeks I have been pestered by an advert for trading options that only appears when I use my blog.  It is very offputting.  It is for a company called Top Option and I am assuming it is appearing with Google's permission since it only appears here.  I don't know whether it appears to readers - but it is quite annoying as it often doesn't cancel when you click it.

I did not come to this site intending to blog about this - but now, boringly, I am.  I think if Google cannot fix it, I will decamp to wordpress - and this may also result in a new more professional method of blogging - less personal - more social/political.

Awkward synchronicity

I wonder what it is that makes the people we are close to behave badly almost instinctively just when we are trying to do our best for them.   I am probably guilty of this too - but at the moment I am experiencing a very annoying phenomenon that is repeated every year at Christmas, and indeed at other times of stress and entertaining.  This is when the person who is the chief beneficiary of the event, manages to fall ill, decide they can't function, leaving the chief workhorse to get progressively more exhausted.  I am currently becoming knackered in the process of preparing the vast Tom Taylor descendants' party on Saturday.  This involves considerable cleaning and cooking, but most horrifyingly, the cleaning.  And tidying up the garden.

For some reason I was so tired today that I dozed off on a sofa in a school corridor while Finn was having his music lesson.  When I got home I continued working for another hour or so, and at 6 o'clock told M that there was a great deal of stuffed pasta and could he prepare it.  I did not say "I'm not having supper" - but nevertheless, the 3 of them scoffed it all, even though Finn asked "is Mum not eating?".   Mark said I "hadn't said I wanted supper."   For the last 20 plus years supper has occurred at regular intervals, 99% of the time cooked by me, the other 1% being takeaways, spag carbonara or the boys cooking, usually when I was ill or knackered.  This week, knowing that I have to cook a vast feast on Saturday, I have slowed down the efforts a little.  But usually we all eat supper together unless someone specifies otherwise.   If is sad that after 20 years I can still be left breathless by his utter thoughtlessness and selfishness.  He doesn't mean it, he just doesn't think.

Sometimes in novels or on telly one comes across husbands who say things like "are you tired darling, do you want me to cook supper?" But presumably these are just fictional characters - no wait, I was married to someone once who cooked supper on his own initiative - regularly.  Obviously there's more to marriage than - but this isn't about supper, it's about consideration, inclusion even.  I don't actually believe M is aspergic, he's too emotionally sensitive in lots of ways.  I am not feeling as sensitive and touchy as I was 3 or 4 years ago.  Maybe I'm just hungry!  but it's upsetting, and once again I feel that all the efforts of the last 20 years are - well not wasted exactly, but I suppose I just can't imagine making supper and eating it with the boys.  But perhaps I should do that.  I don't know, he's apologetic - but I'm hurt.  I shouldn't be hurt, I should rise above it, I should think of all the positives.

Passive agression?
But the fact is, these things ALWAYS happen around about the times when I am making super-human efforts to create something good for the family - in this case the wider family. So they always have a sort of passive-aggressive side to them, as if he is saying "you think you can make me work on this family project, I don't want to - I'm going to be ill, and if I can't get away with that, I shall be unhelpful and obstructive."  I have asked him if he knows he does this, but he denies it.  But every year, as the Christmas events - his birthday (which I feel like cancelling this year), the DAY and my family's day all evoke these sort of responses from him.   Which is why for many years I've fantasised about going abroad - Rome and Egypt always seem appealing - but Provence would do.  Which is why...

Resentment
Yes, obviously, I do feel resentful.  I am trying hard to write, but am not getting a chance.  I am happy to do things for the greater good - it's part of my bleeding raison d'etre - but why can't these feel like a collective effort.  I don't want to direct all the activities, I don't want to be the organiser - Oh God, why did I marry someone with the organisational powers and strategic thinking of a - oh, I don't know - supply your own creature - even a duck billed platypus has probably got greater abilities in this area than M. I bloody well hope my reward will be in heaven - but occasionally I can't help wishing for an earthly reward too.

Almodovar - Los Amantes Pasajeros

Just went to see this at the local cinema club - don't know how long it's been out, but it was great fun.  I am not sure there's much else to say about it.  Obviously if you were horrified by homosexuality you wouldn't find it fun... just horribly vulgar, but my only question about it is:  Is it acceptable to continue to portray the cabin staff of an aircraft as hysterical queeny stereotypes... I mean, this was the kind of thing one heard about in say the early 80's - but now?  Or is it OK in Spain?  Or is it because Almodovar is gay that he can say what he likes (well, we all can of course - but most of us would be torn apart by the wild dogs of PC rectitude if we did).   Or is it - Heaven forefend - that gay cabin crew really do behave like this and the whole thing has been made with documentary veracity.

Given Almodovar's "form" the characters are unsurprising - and the revelations about Spanish business, sexual attitudes etc. are nice and satirical...I did laugh quite a lot, but I could see a lot of the jokes coming.   I was interested that the loudest (most shocked) laughter came during the more explicit jokes - it is that kind of laughter that comes when people don't quite believe that they've heard/seen something so explicit.   One used to hear it at Julian Clary gigs in the 80s.  I found myself laughing less at these bits - not because I am a prude, but because these tended to be the less subtle/amusing jokes.  But I enjoyed it, and enjoyed the discovery that the little bit of Spanish I learned by going to Madrid 3.5 years ago was still helpful.

We wanted to get Finn to come and see the film with us; given his horror at homosexuality it's just as well he didn't.

I'm not talking

I think I must still be recovering from the intense, full on social interaction of the Summer Squall and its aftermath.  I just want to be left alone.  I am feeling I ought to be doing something - but I think I'm in a composting phase... perhaps like last year I'll suddenly have a run at some work and make great inroads into a re-write of Conscience - but just now I can barely think.  Being illish doesn't help, but I really do just want to be alone. And have some time off from domestic duties!

I am reading - that's my new thing, and not going on FB very often - 24 hour gaps between visits.

Bleeding fibroids...

There is something about the name "fibroid" that seems terribly middle-aged and somehow recalls the "Surgical supplies" shops that used to exist, with their discreetly displayed trusses and Dr. Scholl's sandals...or small ads in the back pages of women's magazines, or patent medicines with names like "Iron Geloids".

But there is nothing twee or delicate about the little buggers - they have a whole life and blood supply of their own - and when they decide make a move, you can just about give up thinking about moving very far yourself.  In 2007 a fibroid - which wedded itself to my slightly laissez-faire attitude to my health - made a very good effort at killing me by draining my blood supply and turning itself into a conduit for the blood to leave my body.  After a faint, and a deathly pallor that made Mark famously remark "it looked as though a team of vampires had been at work on her" - I was rescued by the NHS - and given a blood transfusion, and lots of intravenous fluid and then I lost even more blood and fainted again, and that was when I nearly died... however, I mercifully didn't (obviously) and had yet more blood transfusions and an operation and then I came out of hospital and felt weak and feeble for weeks (due to anaemia, etc.).  I was really ill in fact, but as my mother was languishing in the post-stroke world of misery no one in my family really registered the fact, and I got back into the groove and life went on.   Until 2011 - when it started up again.  This time I got treated with a D&C and an IUD (progestogen) and was told that should fix it.  I thought it had.  I still have occasional "periods" - and then I woke up with a heavier than normal one on Sunday, which I largely ignored, but on Monday it began to go bonkers again... heavy blood loss, clots, the works.  I took to my bed, lying on a pile of dark coloured towels - after a few hours things slowed down, and I got a decent night's sleep.   I had another dose of flooding this morning - and then everything calmed down again.

I cancelled all my appointments (an agreeable lunch, a WW meeting, shopping and the Ramsgate Arts Summer Squall post mortem) and went to the doctor.  A fantastic new doctor - a woman, really pleasant and warm - she's "filling in" - do hope to see her again.  I told her my saga, she seemed to agree, but made the usual comments about the menopause - it's an important diagnostic factor in this business.  If I've had the menopause then the bleeding could be cancer - if I haven't, then it's probably fibroids.   Fibroids officially give up the ghost when one reaches the menopause.  So I said "but if I am having tiny periods...." and she said "The IUD can mask the effects - so we can't tell if those are real or not."   So that's interesting.  As usual, anything they give you to deal with problems inhibits your own ability to discern what's really going on.  However, my feeling is that I still haven't made it to the menopause - and the bleeding is rogue fibroids, that have bust out in despite of the IUD.

A male reader may still be wondering why all this fuss about the tiny innocuous fibroid... that is because a man cannot imagine how unpleasant it might be if - without any weapons being involved - your body spontanously began to eject blood in large quantities - say a teacup full at a time - and you rapidly found yourself covered with large quantities of sticky stuff on your clothes and skin, which cannot be easily removed.  Additionally imagine large clots of blood dropping out of the bottoms of your trousers - well, you can't can you?  Then imagine this happened while you were walking down the street, sitting on a white sofa at a friend's house, in the pub with friends, at the theatre, shopping etc.  You would be almost relieved if it happened in the privacy of your car even though you would still have to clean it up - which isn't unpleasant, just tedious.   So - you see, while there is some chance of this happening, I am not planning to go out.  I am hoping that next time it happens there will be a bit of a warning, and it won't begin without warning.   Fortunately - I suppose - there is a warning - a nice dull ache in one's groin - similar to some sorts of period pain, or some sharper cramping pains, or some low back pain - or even some throbbing spasms - so that's good.

Well forgive me for going into detail - TMI no doubt - but I just want to dismiss the cute, diminutive image of the fibroid as something some women get and have to just bear with, stiff upper lip etc.  Because women don't talk about bloody fibroids, no one realises how incapacitating they can be....but now perhaps a few more people do. 

Three days holiday

We went to my father's last week - and I am going to give a brief itinerary - more for the purpose of record, rather than to fascinate the readership.

We drove there on Thursday - we started late and predictably everyone was starving by 3.00 when we came to a motorway service station - so we stopped and had "lunch" - from a weird new phenomenon, a noodle stall - rather like the somewhat ersatz ones run by angry Essexmen at country fairs and other public entertainments - this one was run by a fairly pleasant African woman.  Why I would expect it to be run by people from a noodle-making race is odd, but I suppose it is because I still vaguely hope for some sort of authenticity.   The noodles were average, my sushi was less good than Waitrose sushi (tragically this is my chief point of comparison) and we were not overwhelmed by joy.

The traffic was heavy and we turned off the M25 and drove through the great stockbroker belt around Sunningdale and Ascot remarking on its beauty.  We drove through a considerable amount of woodland, and past some horsey establishments.  It was sunny and everything looked remarkably green and lush for late August.

When we arrived at my father's I suggested we went out to eat at the nice bar above the river in Maidenhead.  The pleasure of the place is in its situation, although the food isn't bad either.  There is a terrace above the river, and a very rivery smell.  We sat outside and drank modest amounts of SA rose (because I was driving) and ate various sharing platter things - then burgers, mussels and salads.  My salad - "crayfish" was a bit insipid - tasteless fish, thin sauce - but not utterly unpleasant.  The boys enjoyed their burgers and Pa enjoyed his mussels - so it was a nice evening experience.

DAY 1  OXFORD

It was a quick drive to Oxford - and I decided that for a change we would do the Park and Drive thing - so we went into town on the bus - Finn was free, it was £6.90 return for the rest of us - so pretty good value, compared with parking charges.  I went to see S&L while the boys went to the Pitt-Rivers museum, which they really enjoyed.. S was looking really well and I heard that he is on a different treatment which seems to suit him well, and he is talking about things in the future so that's encouraging.  We talked a great deal about books and writing and some family topics, and it was all thoroughly enjoyable.  It was lovely to see them both and their youngest daughter - who has some rather extreme views on womenswear... actually they are views I have occasionally espoused myself - but hearing them from someone else I realised I didn't agree with them.  Taken to their logical extremes they would result in us all wearing burquas.

I left S&L's house and took a taxi to the Pitt-Rivers... the taxi driver said very dubiously that there was no where to eat around there,  He hung around, perhaps expecting I would jump in and return to the centre.  However, once I had the map I saw we were about 4 minutes walk from a place with shops etc. and we found a nice cafe where M and I again ate salads and the boys had something else, we also ate sticky buns of a very high quality... delicious coconut and chocolate flapjacks, really lovely.  It was a short walk to the Ashmolean which we all enjoyed greatly.  They have very little original Greek sculpture, mostly Roman copies and plaster casts, but still good to see.  M was pleased at some giant candelabra from Hadrian's villa which had elephants supporting one of the levels.  We looked a lot of Egyptian stuff and I was forced into a discussion about phalluses (the God Min!!) in antiquity... the boys had much useful info about scarification in tribal cultures and what it's function was, so we were able to have some discussion about that.

I got into a bit of a panic because we had to find cash - but once we'd got some we relaxed and walked about, went to the covered market - very different now - and then to a lovely art bookshop in Broad Street, where I bought a number of birthday items for future use.  Then we went and had a drink and went home.  Back at the old homestead my father was planning a curry takeaway - and my sister C joined us.  It was a fantastically good curry - hope my father doesn't do his usual trick with the rice!  We had a vaguely disturbing chat about inheritance - and then went to bed very early.

2.  BRISTOL

After a lot of good architecture in Oxford I wasn't sure what to expect from Bristol - but after leaving the nightmare parking/mall zone of Cabot Circus we broke away towards the old town, parts of which are like Bordeaux (unsurprisingly).  We had a second breakfast - then went over to the Cathedral - an unusual building, heavily restored, but also with a great deal of surprisingly fresh looking medieval Decorated carving - uneroded due to the quality of the stone (like the stuff in Lecce I suppose, which hardens on contact with air).  I did not take enough pictures, and there was no guide book either, so I found it hard to understand mmuch about the history of the cathedral, but it had some impressive features.  The shop was closed for a month - hence lack of guide book.  One remaining side of the cloister lead to a sadly Anglican coffee shop - they do this "simplicity" thing which somehow looks unwelcoming.  Are they suggesting the coffee shop should be a place of worship too?

We then walked down to the waterfront area, and investigated the Arnolfini - the cheap food on offer in the caff there was no to Ned's liking - although I would have liked it.  So we went to the next place we could find, a tapas bar with a haughty waitress.  We had about 5 tapas and a couple of glasses of wine and a beer.  It was a bit "mass catering" so not very interesting - then we went back to the Arnolfini and saw the Ian Hamilton Finlay exhibition.... why was he so obsessed with Saint-Just?  His work is amusing, I saw my favourite post card "A Tribute to Victor Sylvester" - as well as other agreeable images.

There is a good bookshop at the Arnolfini - yet even there amongst the small publishers and quirky novels I was apalled to see a copy of Harold Fry - a book so average that perhaps I would not have thought it possible.

I then sat by the water and made notes about TRF - something L had said about it had piqued me to feel I should expand on it... I was planning to go and get indoors, as there was a brisk wind, when Finn called to say he wanted to leave his event.  I went to get him - an interesting walk down some odd little streets on different levels.  One sight was very Bordeaux - a church tower that spanned a street with an arch beneath it.  Once I had collected Finn and heard his tale of woe, how he had renounced fingerboarding forever... we went and had yet another coffee and waited for M&N.  And so home, via the Clifton Suspension Bridge.  Because we took the wrong turning we did not arrive at the top, but, more spectacularly drove along the road beneath it - it's a bloody long way up.  It was very impressive - and we saw the Avon Gorge - the most rocky thing I've seen for years (East Kent is not rocky at all, anywhere.  The nearest rocks are Tunbridge Wells, if you're desperate).  I realised that I missed rocks, missed Ireland, missed holidays - but enough.  Gradually the Gorge turned into suburbia - but it was good while it lasted.
We returned home and had very good fish and chips.

DAY 3  SUNDAY

There was a certain amount of aggro about what we should do.  Lunch had to be Dim Sum - and Finn didn't want to walk a lot because of blisters, there was a move to go to the National Portrait Gallery (although Finn, astonishingly, wanted to go to the V&A)  so we went to Soho - spent a small fortune on parking... and strolled around various bits of the newly-enlarged NPG - which always seems to have something new and fab - currently seemed to have a bit of a Philippa Gregory theme - main characters from The White Queen were on show.  The usual BP portrait competition - the fashion for "photographic" portraits continues - occasionally with a nod to the fact that they are actually painted - like sticking in an obvious brushstroke or two.  Then we went to have dim sum at "the cheap one" - which I think is called The China Harbour... it was pretty good.  Afterwards we brought a number of buns at the bakery next door, mine was called "sausage and salad" - mysterious.  We didn't go to CCK because of funding issues, but we walked past it to discover it has been rebranded as "The Dim Sum Palace" and looked thoroughly vile - ugly posters outside, but interior still full of unsmiling, cart pushers.

Finn and I sat in Leicester Square while Ned and Mark went to have a look at Thorn House, a famous modernist building on St Martin's lane, largely designed by Edward apparently, with a little help from Sir Basil Spens.  Finn smoked, and gave a guy a light.  I am sure this makes him feel grown up - both of the boys are now fully part of the "orright mate" culture - I envy them their relative ease with it.  We then returned to the most treacherous multistorey car park I have ever been to - and managed to fight our way out of it, and home.

So that was our holiday.  It was deeply enjoyable, just to be somewhere different, but I think on the whole I enjoyed the rocks most - because they weren't demanding anything of me, responses, thought, money.  They were just rocks, Old Red Sandstone I suppose - and they'd been there for millions of years, and would remain for millions more - long after humans have destroyed the planet.  How few things there are in my life that are demanding nothing of me.  Oh well, plenty of time to relax when you're dead I suppose.