So there I am, all whipskittled in the ferment of some dodgy brew, pushing on, not seeing anything much to left or right, just the forward thingy into mist and fog and sludge. I like the forward thing, just saying. Backwards, oh, seen that, see that, way too much. It seems it leads to an old and disappointed state, and I will not go there. I know, it is clear, to me, anyway, that, at 71, oh please let’s not go with the nonsense of the world….. we are old and that is that, no matter what social media or the current culture slams into our faces, making us feel like we should what…….dress as 50 year olds? Pretend we aren’t who we are? No. Thank. You.

Moving on (hopefully). Today I took my whipskittle to a wiser one. We talked, easy, for over an hour, in an island place, the waves smashing the rocks, the birds wheeling, the garden bobbing and cowing against another rising gale, the sun slipping out for a quick reassurance, cloud consumed in seconds. You had to be looking, and there’s a thing. I have to look, all of the time. Could be the face of the kindly driver who allowed for me to reverse fecking scary feet arse up to the sky for quite a few coils. He smiled and waved and I couldn’t help my wave of thankfulness, a lot for his kindness, but more that I hadn’t fallen off the cliff, which I really could have done, all the way down to the crash of the Wild Atlantic and the basking sharks, sadly missing this year. I love this place, the risk of the it, the dynamics, the wild and the crazy. T’is in my blood.

She talked with me, the wiser one. For me, she is. And I think that when I am whipskittled, I would always seek out a wiser one. She asked me, who are you? I confounded myself at that. And we talked on. I honestly think that I can get stuck in who I was. But, widowed and all the rest, I am not the same. Who am I? I don’t think I have ever been brave enough to ask that question. What I do know is that I am fecking tired of whipskittle, much as I love the word.