Smile

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Island Blog – Skinny Dip and Washeroo

Work in the best beach cafe ever was dynamic, busy and fun today. I notice the invitation from faces, the longing for recognition and connection. I remember noticing the same whilst welcoming Colonel and Mrs Tiddleypom after their very bumpy traverse along the Tapselteerie drive. That look. It is universal, on any, no, every face. Seen it in Africa, in Glasgow, in the Edinburgh queue for opera, in airport security, in the aloneness of a bus shelter, in the face of a beggar, the face of a starlet, the face of a terribly important high-flying-big earning business man. (There never were women in those so-called elevated roles in my back-in-the-day.) There is a longing for connection, skinny as hec, yes, but the eyes win, every time, no matter the flicking away, nor the make-up. I can dip into that, you who are right in front of me, as I am in front of you.

There’s a lot of dipping around in the wee space where deliciousness is delivered. We dance well, the skinny we of the serving team. We pull back to allow a big tray of quiches, soups, cakes, coffees, teas heading for a big table and zip sideways, which makes sense. Another, incoming tray of clearings, equally requiring the zip thing, and we pull back or lead, doing it for hours. My role, one it seems I have taken over (which might not be right) is the Washeroo. Is this my mother thing, the historical one who believes she is the only one who can wash up properly? Hmmmm

In the Washeroo, I am listening, peeking out to see if there’s a human on the other side of the counter who wants, yes, to order soup, quiche, cake, but more, someone who, regardless of their worldly elevation or wish for it, or feelings of loss, despair, failure, whatever, just wants a “hallo, what can I get you? Yes of course your dog is welcome, please sit anywhere. And they do. I have noticed that folk stay long beyond their food, talking, laughing, feeling happy, welcome. A lot.

The pecan brownies are delicious, the quiche, oh yes, it comes with a fresh salad, the chocolate cake, I’m sorry it’s gone, but there are flapjacks, cinnamon buns, rhubarb crumble slice, lemon polenta, blueberry muffins, and I have to tell you, this baker knows about air in her baking because EVERYTHING is light.

So, the skinny dip in and out of our work to serve the lovely people who come, just them as themselves, and the work within this skinny dip team, is such a privilege. I honestly don’t know that I have ever been in this dynamic before. I haven’t. We are making a new thing.

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Island Blog – Twenty Twenty Thrive

And so, here we are, landed in a new year, onto an empty canvas, into a story yet to be written. What will you make of it, I wonder? Some of us feel ‘meh’ about the whole thing, some have made a plan of action, resolutions, even, although it is a truth that most of the latter are set too high and dissolve around February 1st. So how might we approach this new land, begin our own new story?

We have talked much on this, here beneath an African sun, and, although ideas are manifold as stars, each one is apposite to that person’s development and growth. To become more healthy is to initiate a plan of action, perhaps to walk each day, perhaps to run, a ghastly idea to me. I could run to save someone or to catch a bus, but all that bounce and jiggle is not a thing I would ever choose to undertake. However, I respect and admire those who do. But if this plan doesn’t get begun, it only serves to bring a person down so that they berate themselves enough to give up on what seemed like a wonderful idea. We are so good at self-flagellation.

Personal growth – now there’s a good one. It could mean noticing everything and everyone: could mean searching out the work of someone who has studied the subject, spoken on it, made it reachable. For me, one who is always hungry for learning, I listen to what others say, how they feel about what they say, and I ask questions. To keep a mind off moans and grumbles and selfies, it’s essential to feed that mind, no matter how old that mind might be.

Connectivity is another option, more of it and among those who uplift and encourage. There is enough gloom and doom out there already. What the world needs is more bright thinkers, those who, in spite of their circumstances, in spite of their fears, choose to see the world as a place of of hope, beauty and opportunity. When I hear moans, I can feel the irritation rise in me. When I hear ‘Well, what can anyone do?’ I want to say ‘A whole lot,’ because each one of us has that power, if we so choose. We can’t change everything, but we sure can change something, and that something is actually ‘someone.’ The self.

Achievements, personal achievements are listable for all of us. They don’t have to be huge. Why do we plant seeds in Spring? Because we can, because we love beauty and that blaze of colour. Why do we smile at each other in passing? Do we, smile at each in passing, or is that ‘self’ so caught up in minutiae, that we just don’t bother? To decide to smile at everyone. A good plan. To pick up litter instead of judging whoever dropped it. Another good plan. To allow someone else the parking space we were heading for. Excellent. A real achievement. And there are many more ways to make a difference whilst moving towards our goal of independent choice, of control over self.

Jimmy Hendrix said ‘ When the power of love is greater than the love of power, our world will find peace.’ I may have misquoted him, but you get the gist. And it begins with one person, one with a resolution that is free to us all. We can all thrive this year, by setting goals or plans or resolutions which connect us to each other, which take our self-centred thoughts up into the sky, to blow away in the winds.

Let’s do this. And a very happy new year to you all.

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Island Blog – Someone, a Smile, Enough

On the spur of the moment, and it felt like it, I made a dash across the water two days ago. Otherwise I would have been stuck, or something like stuck. Instead of being able to celebrate Christmas with a branch of the family tree, and his wife and family, I might have been home alone, and without Kevin to entertain me. I did prepare for the big-ass winds and the faulty ferry situation, I did. I bought a whisky/marmalade cold smoked salmon steak from Tobermory Fish, some wee potatoes from heaven knows where and a pack of frozen peas. I would have made it fun, with or without Kevin, I know I would.

But, thanks to Someone, in this case my sea captain son who knows all about winds and faulty ferries, I dashed early. My ticket, also faulty and dated for Christmas Eve, was accepted and I ran down the ramp in the rain and wind blast and prayed for arrival. I have, in the past felt this, only to have a heart sink as the ferry turned back because landing was not possible. I can remember other ghastlies in my life and that is right up there.

I’m here, warm and welcomed and surrounded with very small someones, each one full of their own angsts, needs, troubles and dreams. It reminds me, although I find myself a tad distant nowadays, not really understanding the language, the lifestyle. I am a granny now, older, but still a Someone. We have walked into the blast, through puddles and a bit of rain but not much, woolie bonnets on, boots afoot, conversation and song flying up into the sky. Mince pies, nourishing soup, a visit to the food shop, encounters in doorways, smiles and felicitations exchanged, trolleys bumped, the indie dash down the aisles for chocolates, treats, more bacon. So many Someones on the way, to bump against, smile at and notice, Every single one of these Someones are Someone. I never forget that. All those we might not notice, those who serve us day in, day out and over years. Do we even ask their names? They are all Someone.

I have learned, over longtime, to separate the Someones from the fog of controlled humanity. I lived through many culture changes, many wars, many geographical border swings and roundabouts. A swirl, a confoundment and not just for me, me, over here in the West with no apparent threat. I think of the Someones caught up in it all, lost, wondering and wandering and I just hope that Someone will see them as Someone. 

All it takes is a smile, eye contact, a tiny hesitation and a hand held out.  So much of enough.

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Island Blog – A Big Warm Friend

Once I get to know my mammoth, I find I like her. She presents as a threat, or so I perceive, but she is a big softy inside. I know about this presenting thingy, I do it myself, always upbeat, the cheerful one, the clown to smile away another’s sadness whilst my own nudges against my outer limits like there’s a whole me in there, longing to be seen, heard and acknowledged. It thinks me. However, thinking is not an action unless I I give it full attention, unless I sort the melodrama and sentimental tiddleypom from the core truth of my thinks. Hiding who I really am is often required and even appropriate at times, out there in the world. Was I to moan out my inner angst at, say, a birthday celebration for a friend, everyone would be stultified, embarrassed and at a loss for words. A meltdown on the 10 am ferry crossing would spoil the day for many folk, leaving them feeling emotionally confused and full of questions as to how I feel, at our next encounter. So, like you, I present as if my exterior is a perfect match for my core truth.

However, and there is always one of those, this can become an unhealthy way to live, this cover up choice, until even I, and in private, do not acknowledge how I really feel inside, desperate to fit in to the shape I ‘appear’ to have, and for all my life. My mammoth, who is fast becoming a good friend, has literally softened as I sit before her hugeness, her tusks, not to mention that, unless she budges, I will never see my sitting room again. We talk. She teaches me about her as I teach her about me. Our languages are not the same and we both need to learn. Sometimes we say more to each other by saying nothing at all, just watching, using eye contact, body language and smiles. It is hard for a mammoth to smile, yes, but, as you know, a true smile is really seen in the eyes, a true one, that is, for we can all turn up our mouths, in rictus, in grimace, and it means nothing if it doesn’t reach our eyes. Eventually, we communicate through thought in sentences that wind, like ribbons, into a flow.

Over days and evenings, we grow closer. She reminds me of my inner self and I suggest to her that she doesn’t need to roar quite so much, and at everything, because listening is key in this world. Sometimes we listen for so long that one of us needs to check the other hasn’t died in the process. She tells me that to feel broken and beaten down is okay. But to feel unheard and unseen as the true person I am, even if my presenting as the world expects me to present has dulled my wits somewhat means I must take action. I bristle, a little, at that, even as I know she is right. So what is the answer, I ask her. She watches me watching her, our eyes locked. Ah, she says, we need to be friends. We are friends! She nods that gigantic head and suddenly I laugh at the ridiculous scene, me on the floor, she taking up the whole sofa, a mammoth in my home, a huge and hairy mammoth! She, sort of, laughs too, but its more of a forest shaking roar that blows my short hair into spikes, knocks over the candles and rattles the window. We must be friends for ever, she says, once we all calm down and I have checked the window for damage and righted the candles. Any time you are not paying attention to whom you really are, being open and honest about it, mostly to yourself, I will block your doorway, I will be your stop-and-check checker. Ok, I say. And as I say this, I see her grow smaller, just a bit. She doesn’t seem to mind, so nor do I. After saying goodnight, watching her lie down to rest, I cover her considerably smaller body, with a big blanket against the chill of the dark hours. See you in the morning, I whisper, stroking her long soft coat.

Maybe, she says, her eyes closing.

In the morning, she is gone.

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Island Blog – Mind over Matter

I have a wood thing going on here. Well, not just me, it seems, but everyone who burns wood for heat on the whole of the West Coast. Blimey! That is a whole load (no pun intended) of not-woodness. I’m not sure any of us saw this coming, or, it might just be me who never saw it coming, what with my focussed presence in the present and with no reading of news or paying much attention at all to the slivers and shivers of doom talk in the village. Notwithstanding, there is no wood. It wonders me. What about the old and cold folk? I hope they have heaters, that’s what I hope, although it is a backside hope considering the sudden rise in utility bills. I can, at least, stand, walk, split big logs. What of those who cannot, and, what if this continues all the way up to winter? Let’s not go there, spiralling into that cold flapdoodle. Let us remain in the present moment, something my counsellor advises me to do, a place it is best to be because if I step out into the stratosphere of chaos and imaginary collapse, I just might never return. No, that isn’t me. I will always return because I have the gift of good health, strong limbs, (ish) no medication, no condition beyond widowness, which, for your information, isn’t even a word.

My wood box is empty. It’s a big old box and I am never happier than when it is full. It used to be so easy. I call, I order, the split and seasoned wood arrives with a cheery smile. I stack, and grin, the abundance thing always grins me.. My log box smiles back. I think about the trees, the felled trunks, the gift they give, these felled giants and the warmth they bring to my bones. A merry fire, merries. Another not word. However, I have some old pine woodland out back and the trees, over 130 years old now, are beginning to die. Can you begin to die? I suspect, yes. Felled by an expert feller, stacked in the woods, some, and a few of the bigger rounds brought down to my garage. These rounds are ready for splitting. Hmmm. The biggest waist girth a much bigger woman than I, but, I encourage myself, they are light, seasoned, ready for the axe. I apply stout boots and go to lift the first. I can do this. The other rounds snigger, I hear it and shoot them a fierce look. They quieten. Now, I do know about splitting wood, how to avoid the knots, where to place the axe, or, in this case, the wedge. I grab the mell and almost fall over. It is way heavier than I remember. Bracing, my stomach muscles ready, I place the wedge and swing the damn mell. I connect and the groan from this huge round tells me I picked the very spot. With a great deal of puffing, missing, and foot darting as the whole thing leaps off the block, I chop enough for one evening. One Evening? Yes, I am afraid so, just the one.

One morning I decide to attack a twisty one. It is ready for this as am I, or so I thought. I whack the mell and whack the mell, the right groans coming from this part of a lovely old tree, and whack and so on and so forth and fifth and even sixth until the wedge is deep inside the determined roundness of the round which remains, well, round. Rats! Now I have my only wedge wedged and completely buried. I hear a chuckle and raise my hand like a schoolmarm. I step back to assess. I will not call my neighbour, a weak 70 year old pathetic woman, I will not. My brilliant brain kicks into life. Observing the stuckness of things, what can I do to free this wedge sans man help? What I need is a pole with a point, that’s what I need. I have one, surely? I do. I place it beside the sniggering wedge. It is too high for me to whack with a mell which is weighty as a ton of lead. I think again. Elevation, that’s it, for me. I heft the stuck wedge and the pole and big round of ancient pine onto the concrete floor, stepping onto the block. Perfect. I whack and whack and so on. Suddenly, the pole achieves my aim (thank you pole) and the wood breaks apart. I am exhausted but so chuffed with my body and brain power. I am not done. I may be alone with these alone things, I may be 70 but I am not done.

And tomorrow? Well, I go again……..

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Island Blog – It Is Enough

I am awake, early, before the sun is fully up, and I have slept enough. This day is my last in Africa and there is much to do. First off, I must needs park the panics, those fussy itchy thoughts as spikey as porcupines, the ones that demand an active hands-on riffle through and a smart shove into perspective. Will my hold luggage weigh too much? Should I find a tote bag for my hand luggage? How many underlayers should I have ready and about me for my arrival into a 30 degree temperature drop? What about liquids and such, which do I pack and which do I have ready for inspection in a clear plastic bag? And there are many more such flapdoodles to un-flap about, all easily sorted. I clear my mind of the swirling chaos, remind myself to inhabit the present moment and make coffee. I sit outside on the stoep and watch the sky, the rising of the sun, a warm pink backlight for a silhouette of trees. Birds call out, sounds I will not hear back on the island, African birds, coloured up like rainbows and speaking a language I don’t understand. A flash of electric blue, a wide span of ruby tail feathers, a butter yellow head, they cut the sky in two, these glorious creatures, an imprint on my memory.

I will love the change of things as I will remember the colours of Africa. Returning home to the island with its skinny roads and warm people almost happens without me. I step on a plane, three in fact, although not all at the same time, take my seat and up I go to cut other skies in two, many skies and one sky, crossing over continents and oceans, countries, deserts, mountains and rivers. A magical thought indeed. Someone might look up to watch the metal bird, heavy laden with precious cargo and, hopefully, my un-heavy hold luggage, as sunlight flashes off its belly, a pink contrail weaving a cloudline. As I doze or eat or read way up in the sky, life continues way down there, families together and apart, discussions on what to do or where to go. Dogs bark away the night or bark it back in again. Meals are prepared, lists are made, fights are fought, losses are grieved and new life is welcomed in. So much life everywhere, so much living to be lived.

For now, for today, I will take in every moment. I will pack, unpack and repack. This is irritating but a part of the procedure, a sort of resistance to change, to leaving what has become the familiar. However, I know of old that we people can quickly establish a new familiar in a surprisingly short time, so capable are we, so adaptable, despite all those hours of flapdoodle. Imagining the worst always first. Lord knows why we do this but I decide it is a perfectly natural amygdala thing, a sorting service provided by our big brains, processing fearful stimuli, a nudge to encourage intelligent preparation before entering a state of change. From there we decide whether or not the fear is real, such as a truck or a leopard coming at us fast. Needless to say, my fear is a bundle of nonsense – do I have the right clothes, yes, adequate sustenance, yes, the right footwear, mindset, passport etc. The way we can muddle ourselves with fear is daft but we all do it at times. I chuckle at myself. All is well you flappy old woman. Just prepare, calmly, and then set your sights on the moment ahead because you are playing a vital and important part in that moment, and the next, and the next and the next. All you have to do is show up. And I will do just that but not today. Today will be itself and I will be entirely and wholly present as the gift of living lights me up like sunshine. And it is enough.

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Island Blog – I Can Do This

Having my young and strong bodied children with me for a few days shows me my age, not that I have any problem with ageing for it is a very natural part of the living process. Nonetheless, my observations shunt forward somewhat around such ebullient fluidity of movement, of thought. I smile, I did smile a lot, as they leapt off steps, landing two feet square, knees flexing whereas I consider each step, paying close attention to my feets and pausing prior to each cautious descent. In fact it chuckles me. It seems like just yesterday I watched my own mum, my in-laws doing this pausing cautious thingy whilst I was still a gazelle, albeit minus two legs. In a doorway with a step down into and up again from the garden, on the stairs, at the top of a set of steps or when wheiching a body in and out of a car seat, I could flow then as they could not. Now I am experiencing it all for myself.

I find the same around packaging, lids and cork-pulling. But, unlike some, I am determined and my favourite of all phrases is my mantra. ‘I Can Do This.’ It might mean I need to ascend a hillock on all fours. It might mean the descent is on my bottom. It might mean I have to cut the packaging with sharp scissors instead of using what are left of of my teeth. It does mean, in the realms of cork-pulling, that I must needs squat on the floor, hold the bottle between my feets and brace myself against the kitchen unit in order to avoid a backwards somersault when the cork comes out but I will succeed because I Can Do This. I say it out loud, just to ensure the full attention of my whole brain, expecting it to communicate new strength to all required limbs. And it does.

When speaking an affirming and encouragingly defiant phrase out loud, I can feel my body responding immediately. Ok, she says, wake UP you sleepyheads! The Boss requires an elevation of pep right now. It always works. When himself vacated his position as the strong one I did flapdoodle a bit, I confess, but there is something about finding oneself on the spot that brings the opportunity to rise strong in circumstances as yet uninvestigated fully. I didn’t then need to find the strength, either of mind or body, to achieve the result I wanted. Now I do and with that ‘I do’ comes the option to falter, fall back, to bemoan my lack as if that lack is terminal. It isn’t. I have succeeded in more situations wherein I was lacking, or believed I was, since being alone than I would ever have believed possible back in the lack. The thing is this:- I don’t want to miss out on anything. Allowing myself to miss out would be my way of dying long before my death and to hell with that shower of nonsense! Ok, others may run far ahead of me, skipping down 3 flights with alacrity, popping corks with one hand or skipping over hillocks, but I will allow myself my place behind them all and I will find my way. I will run the gauntlet of my ouches and my anxieties and will think of life and not on the demise of it because demise is for someone else who gives in too early. I don’t even like the word.

I Can Do This, I tell myself when I have to barrow a load of wood into the shed. I Can Do This, when I manage to press the wrong button on the right machine and it goes into either chatty overdrive or a huff; when I find it hard to twist a lid or descend a hill or climb a fence or any other little challenge that comes my way. I will even manage to free a toothbrush from its ridiculously tenacious package, because I Can Do This.

What are your favourite words of self-encouragement? If you don’t have a line, pinch mine. I have it written in fat felt tip on a card where I can see it all the time. and each time I feel a falter coming on, I read it, speak it out, lift my chin, straighten my spine and smile. Suddenly I am invincible and it feels so very good. Life is for living no matter a person’s age. And remember this……

Circumstances do not control man (or woman)

Man (or woman) controls circumstances.

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Island Blog – A 3 Frock Day

The wind is up and my wheelies are dancing. Only yesterday I freed them from their storm restraint, a rope affixed around their bellies and secured to my fence with chandler’s hook thingies that would normally keep boats from taking off to Holland. I forget their names. I was certain the gales had stopped and it laughs me as I watch the newly freed and recently emptied bins having a blast out there. My fence is smirking at me, I know that look. As a new gust, circa 40 knots, barrels up the loch, one bin, then the next open and shut their mouths. I can’t hear what they say but they are definitely talking. Or laughing.

It’s a three frock day for me, as I cannot risk going out there with anything light and floaty. Light and floaty could bring on an exposure I would rather not experience and nor would anyone else who happened to be nearby. And yet walking in high winds is exhilarating so I will still go out to watch the skinny trees bend towards each other, towards me, creaking and groaning like old women at a WRI meeting. There’s always lots of chat on gale days. The mail might not arrive and the ferry may not run. We are used to this even if it is an infuriation to the best laid plans. Deciding to pop over to the mainland for a shopping spree can lose its shine if a person is still over there 3 days later without a spare pair of knickers and a dog shut up at home. We live dramatically on the island. Nothing is ever a given and I think that’s what makes us so enterprising and so ready to help each other out.

There was no indication yesterday afternoon that a gale was filling its lungs in preparation for a dawning onslaught. The barometer read ‘Set Fair’, and this morning it shouts ‘Hooligan’. I don’t mind so much if I have warning, the time to batten down flapping things, but coming all of a sudden is just plain rude. Birds are flying backwards or in scoops and dives and the bird seed is half way out to sea by now. The feeders swing like ships lanterns in a force 10 and any bird that dares to catch on must feel bilious. I do, just watching them and am very thankful that I can eat a poached egg from a dependably calm and static plate.

The sea-loch is a rise of spume and irritable wavelets, wind blasting over the incoming tide, a conflict of interest. Geese honk over the house and I have no idea how they manage to stay the right way up. If I was up there I would be spinning like a top. It’s hard enough to remain the right way up with two feet on the ground and 3 frocks for ballast. But the weather up here is what keeps me balanced which may sound bizarre until you understand that the capricious sudden-ness of it has become the norm. When visitors rapture on about a beautiful sunshine day of calm and tweeting, they don’t see the truth. Make the most of today, I smile at them. Tomorrow could lose someone their garden shed. They eye me as they might a crazy woman. Sometimes they decide to move up here based on the untruth and then they meet the winter which begins in November and might possibly depart mid May. Endless rain, persistent gales to excite the wheelie bins and power cuts are all a given but we who know this are usually prepared. We have nourishing soup on the hob, loads of frocks and a great attitude. Or we don’t live here at all.

I could live nowhere else.

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Island Blog – Day Enough

Sometimes there are days when everything seems possible and then from nowhere and for no reason arrives one that seriously does not want to be with me at all. I could barely get it out of bed. I had to wheech off the duvet and sing loudly in its ear to get any reaction at all. It wasn’t me feeling this way, no indeed, for I was all bounce and twinkle as usual, but the day itself lay heavy and disinterested in itself even with the prospect of mashed avocado and poached eggs for candlelit breakfast. Needless to say, a sad mood inside a home is going to affect all within those walls and I gradually found myself feeling listless and lost. I didn’t want to sew, nor alter a frock, nor any of the other time-filling things I employ these widow days, like wood chopping or stacking, garage floor sweeping, bird feeding, hoovering the carpets or cleaning the windows. I can make even those mundane tasks into a party. T’is my gift. I can chat to my new electric blue stick hoover with headlights and a wonderful base note in the key of B. I find my melody to match her base and off we go like ballerinas, scooting round corners and sucking up the drift, minding the spiders of course. She knows not to go there and her headlights make it so much easier. I tell Henry, as I return Blu to her spot in the dark cupboard under the stairs, that had he headlights and were he to let go of control by holding back his power instead of showing off by lifting newly laid carpets from their nail tracks, and if he smelled as fresh as she does, he would have more exciting excursions around our home. Chopping wood is my stress release. I don’t imagine anyone’s head on the block but simply see the challenge of this big ass half tree before me as one I am more than able to accept and complete successfully. I have a wonderful axe, t’is true and she and I have had many adventures in our time together.

But thanks to the Grumpy Day, I feel I am blowing into the wind, fully expecting it to say “oops’ and to turn around. I whacked up the tunes, made coffee, told myself to lift, lift and lift but the lift was out of order and no amount of poking at the buttons shifted the damn thing. I was slumped and furious at my slumping. So weak, so not like me, so lazy, so ungrateful, so pathetic. Then I remembered something my African son posted on his (Y)our Happy Place Facebook page just yesterday. I don’t remember the exact words but the message was to allow rest and revival rather than dashing into this new year with impossible goals that often lead to failure and self-flagellation. Well, I hadn’t set any goals beyond getting beyond all the fallout from a decade of dementia care followed by death, a process everybody tells me, helpfully, that can take years. But it was the ‘allowing’ thingy that stopped me beating myself up. I have never been good at allowing myself to ‘fail’ my high standards for self even as I am the best and warmest mother hug for anyone else who believes it for themselves. How riddickerluss is that.

The thing I do know about such days when nothing feels easy and all you can see out there is rain and mizzle and dark, is that they are not my fault. These days just come and there is only one way to get to the end of them and that’s to make them warm and welcome, knowing they are random and that everything about their gloom and slump is their stuff, not yours. I watched a movie, sat by the fire, watched the neighbour’s beautiful cat pad around my bird feeders and allowed myself many allowings Although I do feel a bit overwhelmed with all the positive thixotrons that invade social media, posted and re-posted, thus allowing people to say nothing from their own mouths, I do get it. Covid has locked us down too long and that hiding away has conflounced our equilibrium, upset our balance and challenged what we always understood as the pattern of our lives. We are all wide-eyed children now, wondering, peeking out, unsure and we don’t really know what to say next. When I say something next and out loud my dog barks. That is how silent life is when one goes and the other stays behind.

But, I digress. This day is almost gone. Actually it has because I made it some good sandwiches and a flask of tea and waved it off a few moments ago. It was a sad old thing for sure but I did dry off its jacket and boots and we did chat and I did make it very clear it is never welcome but that I will never turn it away and that made it smile. Which made me smile. And that was enough.

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Island Blog – Tigger

The trouble with me, or one of the many troubles with me, is my Tigger bounce in the early mornings. It’s ridikkerluss. I must have driven my children mad with all that early bouncing, especially on school days. Waking in this ‘darking’ at 3.30, wide awake, excited about nothing and everything, I have to get out of bed. Thank you bed, I say with a reassuring pat, as it’s a bit startled. Most people, I add, would just turn over but I never believed in turning over anything with the exception of new leaves, naturally. I would be marvellous on early shifts in, say, a hospital. I would burst into the ward, my smile leading the way. Good morning! I would sing, as I reinflate the flagging night watch, flip on the kettle, brew coffee and head off to cheer the post and pre-ops, soothe the sad and weary, have a blether with the janitor and make him laugh but not too loudly, naturally.

By 6 I have cleaned the cobwebs and wiped the walls that have been hidden behind the Family Furniture for decades. The walls look startled too, suddenly aware of their nakedness. The cobwebs are all fluff and dark materials; very dodgy, but easily removed with my eco cleaning spray and a determined scrubber hand. Before I wipe them away for ever, I watch the way the webs float and lift as I pass, like wisps of smoke. I check for lodgers, but they have already scuttled off into a safe corner, probably temporarily blinded. I can see where the painter didn’t paint, couldn’t reach behind the Family Furniture. I pause to wonder who will buy these big pieces, who will thrill at the very sight of them, a must-have for the perfect place inside their home. I wish them and the furniture many blessings and a very happy life together. And, good luck polishing those brass knobs. I am done with brass knob polishing for ever. I have also moved furniture, stacked books and it’s not 7 yet.

I blame my mother. She was just the same. I remember us going to visit when the kids were young. I was up early, but himself, who could sleep all night and longer, remained in bed. Mum wasn’t having any of that nonsense and she wheeched off the duvet revealing his naked splendour and tickled his toes whilst singing something nobody recognised. He never got over it, not for years and years. Ah, well, I told him. You are not alone in this. Most people never get over my mother. So thanks Mum for the Tigger in me, the mischief, the fun and the way you were the most impossible woman who ever lived and probably always will be.

Unless I take over that role, of course.