Coltbridge

This is all true… or maybe not entirely correctly remembered, but mostly described as it happened. I mean, it's not one of my stories.

Before we married, me at eighteen, him just turned twenty, we found ourselves a place to call home in a ridiculously tiny flat in Coltbridge, Edinburgh. Down and around a corner, in a sort of mews, I’m not sure if it was Place, or Terrace or Avenue, but whichever. A cabinet maker had his business right next to our stair door. I may or may not have taken the place at all if I’d understood that a cabinet maker made coffins. Well, who knew?

Ours was ground floor, with the bedroom window looking into the mews and the living room window looking onto a little patch of green at the back, below the bridge crossing a shallow stretch of the Water of Leith only yards away at the bottom of the garden. Our only access was through the window, but I planted crocus and daffodil bulbs in the grass, hoping to cheer the place up in the spring.

I wrote elsewhere of how our cats used this window for easy access but it was J’s access I’m speaking of here. I also mentioned how ridiculously small the place was? I’m not exaggerating, but we loved it. The tiny kitchen was basically just a gas cooker with a sink next to it, and bunker opposite, with cupboards below. Room to turn around between the two, with the cat bowls on the floor. The living room was perhaps three by four metres if that. We did have a bathroom, with a bath I might add, crammed next to the loo and a sink overhanging the bath. The bed, which came with the place, along with the wardrobe, wasn’t that big but the door hit it when you entered. The wardrobe door didn’t fully open either as it hit the bed on the other side. You could just squeeze past the window at the bottom of the bed. Seriously, the space was cramped. But still, it was our place.

Our first New Year's Eve as a married couple, we had the gang over. At some point, after sufficient lubrication, the slapping game erupted. This is where the men are shirtless and they take turns at slapping each other across the chest and back and arms. The point being to see who can land a proper handprint on the other, hence the bare chests. There is no winner, only a whole lot of laughter. Hysteria ensued, not least from one of the other girls who was upset to see her man so… manhandled. It was really hysterically funny, both the yells from the boys as her blubbing. It was just fun! Insane fun, but still. There’d be one flexing his fingers, ready for revenge for the slap he was clearly portraying across his back, and the other now cringing, waiting on it. Even if you hadn’t landed a good one, you were obliged to take the revenge slap. Eventually, it did all calm down, much more alcohol was consumed, to numb the pains perhaps… and J and a couple of the others took a shower to cool off their burning skin.

It was the wee sma oors by now and things were winding down so everyone was getting their coat (wriggling past to even put them on - wee place and all!) and they all headed out the door. J was still, miraculously, wrapped in a towel at his waist as we sat at the window, waving to them as they crossed the bridge, heading into town and home. I should perhaps have been more alert, but it was after all the end of a long and heady night. It was cold at the open window, it was Hogmanay after all, and I did warn him to be careful as he swung his legs over the sill…

…to jump down into the grass, leaving the towel in my hand. He was now dancing a merry jig over the grass to hoots of laughter from both me and every one of our pals on the bridge overhead. Naked as the day he was born. I knew there was no stopping him so could only laugh as he pranced towards the edge of the water. ‘No.. don’t!! It’s freezing!’ but there was no stopping the bold boy as he skipped merrily into the water. We were all ending ourselves as he splashed around, suddenly to realise just how cold it was. He darted past me with the towel in my hand on the grass and threw himself in the window, narrowly escaping serious damage to his bits which had sensibly retreated into hiding. He was yowling with laughter though and as I myself climbed in behind him, the crew waved and left… I could hear them still laughing until they were well out of sight.

I don’t remember how it all went after the window was closed. I honestly have no memory of how I got him to bed, or if perhaps he just lay on the floor until returning to his senses next day? Anything is possible. It had been a wild night, I’m sure I threw myself into bed right away, but honestly, don’t really remember.

I’ve always wished one of us had had a camera that night. For the slapping, the crying and for them all standing on the bridge, laughing fit to burst, and for the ghostly white figure of a drunken man dipping himself in the Water of Leith on New Year’s morning of 1974. I have the images burned into my brain though, they’ll do.

We didn’t stay there for very long. Six months I think we managed? It was way too expensive for us really, despite the size of the place. We were gone before the spring so I never did see if my bulbs came up… with luck they carpet the place, almost fifty years later, although someone will have dug the place over since, probably.

J’s reputation as a go-go dancer followed him for many years, and he has 'obliged' at odd intervals, although kept his kecks on, mostly, thank goodness. There is film, somewhere, to be released one of these days, perhaps for money. Alcohol was always involved, of course, so probably won’t happen again any time soon because those kind of events are pretty few and far between at our age, but never say never. He’s never been shy, so alcohol actually needn’t be a requisite, to be fair. I sometimes think that he and Billy Connolly are related, because BC is always getting his kit off for a prance in the snow or around Stone Henge or something. Oh, just remembered one J did in Spain… haha, but that’s another story.

Feelings

I asked friends to send me ‘first lines’ to write a story around. I got quite a few, that project is ongoing. Then I asked for a ‘subject’ as some of the first lines are hard! The only one there that came in was from C… ‘Feelings’. I think I can work with that, but not for a story. So I’m writing this blog on it.

We all have them of course, excepting the psychopaths among us. We all have to contend with them at times! (Hah, we have to contend with psychos too!) Sometimes, perhaps mostly, it’s nice. Contentment is a nice one. Joy and Happiness, of course. Relief is good. It’s when the negative ones impact on our lives that we notice them most, of course. Contentment, happiness… those are easy and practically unnoticeable when you are contented and/or happy. It’s when you lose them, only to have them replaced by sadness, misery, worry, grief… when they take over, well then we notice them all too much. When you’re elated, or just quietly happy, you don’t really think about if it will ever end. When the bad feelings arrive, you’re sure they never will end. Funny that.

Animals have feelings too. Of course, they do. Some manifestly more than others, sure. Nobody hears the screams of the daddy-longlegs you pull the legs off! Yet, anyone who sees a dog in the shelter (for instance) and denies it’s pain or sorrow or fear, or doesn’t believe that cow is scared going down the ramp in the slaughterhouse - I’d say they’re high on the psycho spectrum. Humans don’t have a monopoly on pain although we are usually better at showing it when it is not immediately obvious. If you have (had) a dog, you’ll have learned to see the signs that are not always evident. They handle things differently is all.

Me, I call my pain threshold uber-low! Gimme the drugs! I have never seen the point in being stoic. I’ll yell it out with the best of them if the dentist is hurting me. I’m not about to make his day good when he’s ruining mine! There are different circumstances and different levels of hurt, but I truly believe keeping it internal when it is too much *for you*… psychological hurt too… is detrimental to health. I don’t go crying all over the place when I can keep it in. I mean, I wouldn’t frighten the kids, lying about, languishing in bed with a damp cloth on my forehead at the least twinge, but if you stamp on my foot, accidentally or not, I’m not going to be polite about it.

Some feelings overwhelm the most stoic though. Of course. Grief is the pits. Grief has various ways of manifesting and it can hit you right away or it can simmer on a low peep and suddenly grab you by the throat when you least expect it. I’m not a follower of the ‘7 stages’ theory. Not if I’m honest. I don’t think things like that can be proscribed, so don’t see the point in classifying it. In retrospect, the categories sound legitimate, credible, sure. It’s just, if I was grieving right now, really grieving, I’d be annoyed too (a useful feeling!), wondering which stage people thought I was in. Of course, no one is saying things go chronologically, or that you have to feel this way *today*, it’s just the whole pigeon-holing I don’t like.

Grief is a very personal thing. It’s comparable to what makes you laugh, in a way. You often cannot explain why a particular thing is funny when the person next to you sees nothing funny in it. Grief can cripple the one, yet leave the other sad while not unduly bothered. There are levels. My grief for a pet, my grief for a friend, a family member… they could all be equally horrendous and sincere yet totally different from someone else, ‘equally’ affected. Different each time too. The time for the grief to kick in, the length of time it lasts, the intensity… it can all vary, every time.

Gratitude… is that a feeling? Yeah eh? I’m sure it helps to ‘quantify’ grief somewhat. Gratitude for the time you had with the one you’ve lost. Gratitude to those around who are helping you, knowing the depth of your grief. Gratitude that you had affairs in order that will take the load off, when things settle. That kind of thing. Solitude though, that feeling of being alone, that’s a biggy. That one must be hard to control for a long time if, say you lose a life partner. Guilt… that’s always a hard feeling to cope with in whatever circumstance. Even when it is entirely unjustified that you should feel at all guilty.

Hatred, anger, disbelief, abandonment… they’re all negatives that are surely difficult to shake off. I think, I do believe, that people are fundamentally meant to be happy. It’s our default setting. All the negatives put everything out of kilter and can make us ill, and yet they are so obstinate and enduring. It’s not that I believe in denying them! Not at all. Negatives can be useful at times, I’m sure. We need to feel a measure of pain to know that something is not right. It’s the all-consuming, suffocating negatives that even when battered with your strongest painkillers of whatever ilk… they still tend to prevail. Those are the ones everyone needs help with, with Patience, Love, Understanding, Friendship, Time… all of that. Hmm, Time, I don’t think falls under ‘feelings’… but you get my drift.

I’m a sucker for sad films, sad stories… anything to have a wee greet at really. Yet if I was actually grieving I know I wouldn’t want to see any of it. I know none of it would compare and I would be annoyed at the audacity of people pretending, acting out, how it is to be… well, me. I have grieved, I know. I know how it totally sucks that everyone else’s lives just go on like yours isn’t at its lowest right now.  I remember thinking ‘how dare they!’ Don’t they know how I hurt? I remember how every single thing on the telly was impossible to watch because it indirectly or perhaps even directly, referred to my situation. Somehow. At one point, I remember having just lost my dad, Dave Allan's sketch about a coffin rolling down a hill... hysterical in other circumstances... seared my eyeballs at the time. World affairs did not matter. A nuclear explosion could happen a mile off and I *could not* have noticed nor cared less. Of course, that’s an exaggeration, but it’s to illustrate how isolated, how totally muffled, insensate, grief and all its associate feelings can make you feel.

I do think grief, and all its inherent negatives, is essential too though. A ‘rite of passage’ perhaps. Not that you need to experience it if nothing particular happens in your life to cause it, but that when it does, you ‘should’ grieve. As it befits *you*. Nobody else, no prescribed stages to be followed, just how you feel. With all your feelings. Wallow in them even. Have a good soak in them. Take as long as you like. I’ve read of people saying ‘oh you must be over things now eh?’ and personally would be livid at such a (paraphrased) suggestion. That and ‘buck up’ or similar. I will decide, I think?!

So, feelings eh? Emotions. Empathy being high up on that list… normal people (and lots of animals) need them. We need to experience them. Even the negatives, even at their worst. We just need to know there is an end to the bad ones. And there is. Always. The worst will eventually be but memories. Nice memories will drown the bad ones, or at any rate, take the edge off. Grief too fades, the pain gets less, only to resurface on anniversaries, imagined or otherwise. Not because we have forgotten, but because we have learned to live with them. The good stuff becomes more prevalent and inevitably, life goes on. I'm in no way saying how anyone else should 'feel'. Just, say it, with feeling. Life does go on.

Sonny

I’ve possibly mentioned him before. Have I?

He was such a mad dog. Mad in a good way. Ostensibly my sister’s dog, she brought home this ridiculous beast, still a puppy, but big with it, and named Popeye because of the patch around his eye. Well, that wasn’t happening! So we named him Sonny, after Sonny Liston, if I remember correctly. He was at least part Boxer, so it fitted.

Sis left the country shortly after so we all took turns at taking him out from our top-floor tenement house. Not often enough though and probably not far enough. Sonny took it upon himself to run away at every opportunity because we were so lax in our duties, but he always came back. Until one day he didn’t. Days he was gone, and we were all inconsolable, until the knock at the door. A policeman carried him in and laid a very sorry, quite badly injured Sonny on his blanket. Dad must have asked about him at the police station or something? I don’t really know. He was by now dad’s dog of course, but we all loved him and I’m sure there were inquiries made at the Dog and Cat home, that kind of thing.

I don’t know what had happened to him and we’ll never know, but there was a huge wound on one back leg. It took ages to heal and might well have required stitching but who had money for vets in those days? Maybe they did take him to the vet? I don’t know. Suffice to say he was coddled and petted and spoon-fed for a couple of weeks. Carried downstairs for his business and carried back up until he was his old self again and back to eating like he’d never had a meal in his life, chasing his plate across the floor and wolfing it all. Every time!

While still young, he was badly mauled by a much bigger Boxer while I had him on the leash. He hated that dog forever and was totally cowed by him. Another giant black Labrador at the end of the street hated him and would take every chance at getting him, his owner holding desperately onto his leash and being pulled along. It wasn’t always fun to have poor Sonny out on the leash. It wasn’t that he was aggressive, just that other dogs hated him for some reason. So it seemed.

One early Christmas he found my presents before I was up and my baby-doll lost her hands and was left with punctured arms before I even saw her. Dolly sits on top of my cupboard yet, gloves hiding her damaged arms as a reminder of Sonny. Not sure they bother her. Dad tarted him up with a bow-tie at New Year and he seriously liked it, showing off to all first-footers. Although it might have been because they gave him treats.

He loved going on holiday and I have memories of running up the hills with him in Burntisland, Sonny way ahead. We walked the whole place together then, day after day. Along to Petticur Bay and back too. We were always out and about when over there. He’d go racing through the bracken on the hills and disappear for ten minutes, coming back with a stick far too big for comfort. He sent me flying, one day on the links. Right up in the air I was, landing with a thump on my tailbone. Pest was licking my face and still jumping around, not realising I was crying and in pain. He’d come firing into me from behind, just trying to catch me.

We were still not the best at walking him in town, but for a couple of years, he was my passport to getting out at 9pm when the news came on. J would be waiting downstairs for me as Sonny waggled downstairs as fast as he could, peeping all the while, to get out and lift a leg before he couldn’t keep it in any more.

There had been talk of getting shot of him. He hadn’t been the best behaved, having practically eaten two brand new mattresses, and witness, Dolly. He emptied the bin at regular intervals and you basically couldn’t leave him alone so, he got his own ‘room’. Forget getting rid! A box-room, storage with an old tea chest and blanket for him to lie with. It got so he liked going in it every night for bed and knew to remind us he was there of a morning. The door had deep scratches from his early days in there, but it was only locked when he would otherwise be alone. He honestly didn’t mind. We got him a cat, my cat, for the company and after a while, he didn’t really need to be in there at all, but it was his night-time spot. Until we moved out of town.

My 9pm slots were history, but that’s another story. For Sonny, it was paradise. He was out in the country now. Who needed walked? Dad would just open the door and say ‘come back in half an hour you!’ and he’d take off. He became well known around there and he wasn’t so much a stray dog as a local dog. He became well known at dad’s local too, where he’d get a half pint in a bowl and a packet of crisps just for him. He came home with evidence of a fight often enough, but still knew where home was. I wasn’t there much but it was my bed he slept on when I was. Wasn’t allowed, but rules were for other dogs. He guarded me and a friend one time when we were out with him and approached by a creep. Threatening to set Sonny on anyone would keep the worst away for sure. Despite his silly black eye and the one brown patch on his white back, and his ridiculous wiggle to wag his roughly docked tail, this boxer/bull terrier cross was all muscle and loyal with it.

I made a proper birthday cake for J one day – a work of art, iced properly and all -  and he was coming out to our place for his tea. A rare occasion. I met him off the bus and when we got in, Sonny was on the table, demolishing the cake and looking more than pleased with himself. A whole cake! He did the same with Easter Eggs one year if I remember rightly. Just a few bits of cardboard and chocolate all over his face as evidence they’d ever been there. The dog was a hoover, a mincer, a grinder and a garbage disposal on legs, with teeth! He may or may not have had stomach problems with his penchant for eating stuff that really wasn’t good for him, but if it was more than gas, it never really transpired.

After I left home, and took my cat with me, it came about that a family with kids just down the street were enamoured of him because he just inveigled himself into their home. They knew he was ‘our’ dog and would bring him home to start with, but dad was sick and mum had her hands full. She knew it was nice for him to have kids around. He so loved kids. So, still our dog, he more or less lived with them. He didn’t seem to like going in to see dad, knowing he was sick, but would come and visit and hear dad give him a ‘ya bah!’ and leave again. He barely stayed in our house now.

The weekend dad died, Sonny was off on his holidays. A caravan with the other family. They later said he’d been pining and out of sorts all day and at one point had started howling. They hadn’t been able to console him so had had to bring him home. He’d known. How, we’ll never know, but he’d known his man was gone and he was upset. He came in, sniffed around, and promptly sat at the door to get out again. Never lived in ‘our’ house again and lived out his days with the family up the road.

I was about 25 when he died and he’d been around since I was about ten so when mum phoned to tell me, even though I hadn’t seen him in years, I was well cut up. I have very few pictures of him, but his image is branded on my retinas and I won’t forget him. Pest of a dog, he was the best. Always licking himself and making a horrible noise doing it, and grossing people out with wind at inappropriate times (when you were eating!) but he gave the best welcome home ever and never once growled at us or any other child.

It’s funny how we remember our pets. Sonny is still a huge marker on my early life at ‘home’ and I know other people have similar memories of growing up with a favourite. We had lots of pets throughout the years but he (and my cat, his companion) were my proper initiation into the world of animals. Rodents and birds don’t count as much. Horses didn’t either. Just Sonny.

We didn’t have a dog all the time our own kids were growing up, for various reasons, and it wasn’t until the girls left home that we took on a rescued dog which, again, changed our lives. For the better, for sure. It’s what they do. We should have had them when the girls were small. We had two more after her, all female, (sorry Sonny but you put me off boy dogs with the licking!) and they were a joy, an enrichment in our lives. No question. None now though, you are freer to travel when you want, without a pet… and man, they do die on you, which kills you.

So, Sonny. I’m sure he had no idea the kind of mark he made on us. On me anyway. Never properly trained, he preferred just to trail you behind him on his leash. His best trick was sit and give a paw, which, after all, ain’t much. He understood dad’s gibberish commands though, no doubt, and did listen when he spoke. The connection there was more than just ‘man and his dog’ – they did win a prize as ‘dog most like his owner’ once! – and we, all of us, were just extras in his whole theatre production. I like to think he had a good life with us, after his bad start, whatever it was that put him in the shelter to start with. Well, I know he did. He only moved on when there were none of us around to coddle him. He needed that coddling and just went and found it for himself. Like any smart dog would.

And he was smart. Not annoyingly smart that you could show him off, but street smart. The best of dogs. Our dog. Sonny.

Hey, Google!

J has always kept up an up-to-date household. Me, not so much, but he has always been on the ball with gadgets. We had a ‘Home PC’ since 1982 and all the upgrades since, and we were first on the block with a video player. Oh yes, we were. We’ve run the gamut of giant video cameras propped on the shoulder, all the way down to dinky things that made us laugh that we ever toted the camera bags around on holiday in ‘the old days’. Now it's all on the phone of course, although I like my wee point and shoot, digital camera. We had the best stereo players (still have our fandabidosy Sony one from the ‘70s although it’s up in the loft). Then the stereo towers got smaller and smaller until we ended with a wall-hung B&O model that I still very much like. I’m not in a hurry to change my giant, deep-backed B&O television as I know and like the interface it uses, but he has the flat screen in 'his room', where he keeps all his DAT tapes and player, plus ancient LPs and CDs and all he needs to still listen to them (and all 'his' books despite the e-reader he has).  

He took a while to get into mobile phones, but is now hooked of course, and knows how to do stuff with them that I can only imagine. I do like that we can turn on lights while we’re away, or have the central heating turn on for us coming home, from the train. All via the phone.

The latest doodad makes us all very ‘Space Odyssey..y'. Took a while to see the use in the thing, and it’s not completely ‘SMART’ compatible (so for instance, doesn’t close the curtains remotely - leaving aside the fact we don’t have any) but it is quite the handy thing for asking questions you want the answer to, and of course, listening to music! Who needs a stereo of any description, or CDs (or LPs for that matter) nowadays?

However, the hilarity of getting it to actually do what you want is, alone, almost worth the price. We’re not quite speaking with HAL yet, and to be honest, I rarely approach the thing at all, but when you get it right, it is good. It’s just that, we don’t always get it right. This is an example of how it goes.

J: Google, please play xx by xx (no reaction, you have to say Hey Google).

J: Ffs (only, not as an acronym)… Hey Google, please play xx by xx.

G: Sure, playing abc by xyz on Spotify.

J: No, not abc, I said xx by xx! (music by total unknown plays on as you have to say Hey Google, stop, first).

J: Google stop. (music plays on… I interject with ‘say hey!’)

J: Hey Google, (schnagglefaggleskwatchsplutter) play xx by xx ffs (music plays on, he’s still not said ‘hey google, stop’ first).

J: (speaking loud and articulate, like 2 inches from the thing) Google, play xx by xx (music plays on).

J. Arghgh! Hey Google, stop! Hey Google, will you please just bloody play xx by xx. Any time you like!

G: Sure, playing xx by xx on a Spotify playlist.

J: Thank you. At last! (no reaction, because of course you have to say…)

J: Hey Google, volume down please (no response because ‘it’ (she?) can’t hear him and we’re bouncing off the walls!

J. (back to 2 inches away) Hey Google, lower the volume please (volume lowers).

So we’re ten minutes further and we finally can listen to whoever it is he has requested. And then it stops after one number because he didn’t ask for the album, and it just played one track. 

It’s smashing like, great sound (I do hear it with my CI and HA on), but I can’t help thinking we need some kind of improvement to the voice recognition.

When the boys are over, it’s a constant ‘hey Google…’ with them asking it questions as well as playing daft Dutch stuff), which is great fun but ‘she’ doesn’t always understand Dutch as is tuned to UK English and IF they use English they have a dutch accent (and a Scottish accent throws things out of kilter too). And that’s another thing! I don’t like this beatch in her English accent, saying ‘sure’ to me all the time!! ‘Shoa, hee’s xx by xx …’ Grrrr.

All this is not even exaggerated. Well, maybe a bit… but not a lot. Still, he got one for upstairs, ‘for when the boys are over’ and a rival one for in his room.

We now also have another one of the things (the rival version, called Echo) that he listens to before falling asleep in bed. Which I don’t even know is on (deaf). That one also replaces our radio alarm, which I never hear anyway and tend to wake up before it goes off, which is good, because when I don't, I barely hear it but it has him almost hitting the ceiling when it turns on, so loud. I only know that Echo is doing anything at all, from a wee light that whirls around, and I know to just say Echo stop, to shut it down. All mod cons, me!

I like it, I do, and with four of the feckers in the house, we are still up there with the Jones’ I’m sure, but I think I like my ‘retro’ record player better and will stick to that when doing the ironing. The wait is now on the 'rivals' rising up in the battle of the robots and taking over this asylum, so I'm keeping them on-side for now.

Knickers to that!

Knickers eh? What a strange garment.

I was contemplating them... as you do... and the more I looked at the various sizes folded neatly on my shelf there, the more the mind boggled at the whole industry that has arisen over the years, around just that (relatively) small item. It's big business, from the six pairs for a tenner made in some horrible dungeon in India, to one tiny bit of fluff for... oooh, way too much!... made in some horrible dungeon in India. (Well, who knows!)

It's a fairly modern bit of apparel by all accounts and used to be very 'sensible', going on the examples still to be found from Victorian days. Imagine if your knickers were to be on display in a museum. Arghgh. Big giant bloomers, originally crotchless too. I suppose the long gowns worn at the time kept the drafts off. I do wonder why anyone would want antique knickers of any persuasion from any previous owner, even if she was the Queen. 2nd-hand of any age do not appeal to me one bit! I suppose it's handy, for historical purposes if nothing else. Bras, I can see, sure. Knickers... not so much. 'If they're not new, they're not for you!'

There was no such thing as knicker elastic in those days either so, untying when you've a long gown on top... hmmm, makes sense to be open to the elements so you don't have to do that. So now I'm imagining the horrors of the easily-tripped-over hems on grand staircases with legs akimbo, head over heels... bad enough nowadays, with crotches intact! Not counting the risque crotchless affairs available.

I remember when first married, we had two old age pensioners in the flats below and they shared the same drying green with us. Old Maggie used to rail at us about old Janet with her dainties hanging out for all to see... 'You can't tell me she wears them!' she'd rant. 'They're just for show! Do you see the size of them?' They were indeed of the rather tiny variety, and given the age, not to mention shape, of Janet, they were on the small size. You can't know though. How would we know?! Though Maggie did have a point, there was no finding out for sure. It was hilarious listening to the rants, I have to say. Discussing your neighbour's ludicrous, knicker-wearing habits has to be up there with the best of comical memories. Aaah, good times.

Myself, I've never taken to those string affairs... thongs, whatever they're called. I know plenty wear them, but have never seen the attraction. I suppose they can look good on a beach but the examples of actually attractive derierres are few and far between... let's be honest here. Not worth the horrors that are displayed with impunity... and man, but they're uncomfortable (I did try). I really don't see the point of them and dread to think what the neighbours would say if they saw them hanging out on my line!

I will admit to, fairly recently, still buying the ones that are just too bloody wee. I mean, they fit, sure, but they don't... cover. Ye cannae tuck yer vest in! I've finally capitulated though, and will no longer subject myself to the discomfort of anything but nice, comfy BIG pants. You can get them nice now too! You can! 

They do look horrendous on the line, I agree. Even I can hold them up in disbelief that 'these are mine?!' but I'm now that pensioner neighbour that Maggie was wont to ridicule behind her back and really, what IS the point of flaunting wee bits of lace and elastic that merely make you look ridiculous - and are uncomfortable to boot?

I am at peace with myself that there will be no more 'dance of the seven veils' at the bottom of the bed. Comical as it was to start with, it didn't used to make him want to poke his eyes out like it does now. So, the tiny knicks really are history... or at least will be when the currect supply runs out. I don't see any of my cast-offs turning up in a museum display cabinet in the year 2345, but then again, I won't be around to complain about it so, fire ahead you historians.

I do have some nice ones, damn it though. I'll probably never even get through all of them because, as is usual, I tend to keep rewearing the newly-washed comfies until they wear out, which isn't fast, not really, and the wee useless things stay unworn at the bottom of the pile. Then I buy new ones. I think the trick is to combine 'giant' with 'pretty' with 'practical' with 'comfy'. They do exist, and not all of them are extortionately priced, so I'm golden for a whiley yet.

So. This was not to gross anyone one about the thought of my knicker collection, but just to get it off my chest about one of the luxury problems we women all face at some point in our lives. There are more pressing problems in the world, I do realise, but I have little or no say about most of them. 

I feel so free now... almost like I'm not wearing knickers.

The Old Days

I had been thinking, as you do, of ‘the old days’.

Now, that’s a loaded phrase really, as it means different things to different people and what’s old to one, is really, REALLY old to another (although at my age, living witnesses to that much older are thin on the ground)… But also, not all THAT old to yet another. It’s the nature of things.

For instance, when I see the likes of The Old Grey Whistle Test repeated on the telly… that looks so dated and so long ago, and then Top of The Pops repeating stuff from… the 90s… what? That’s not long ago? I don’t even KNOW that stuff! Hah! And yet that generation look on it as 'history' already. Funny how music does play such a role.

Things in the world are definitely different to when I was a kid though. I only just make the cut and can’t say, in wee quivery old granny voice, ‘there were no tellies when I was wee’… but only just. The one we had was the iconic giant wooden box with small screen.

I remember too when we got an ‘automatic’ washing machine that superseded the washhouse. It was a weird-looking thing, noisy and a bit of a stood-in-the-way item. We used a clothes pulley to dry the washing too, which is quite the chic item to have nowadays, great to hang dried flowers on for instance… haha, the very idea. I still would rather like one for clothes to be fair. Funny thinking of it hanging over our heads in the kitchen.

It’s more in my adult life though, that I notice the huge changes in the world. Of course, things always change, but when you think of videotape players not even being around when your kids were small, the mind boggles. We were the first in our neighbourhood to have one, and this huge thing would be handed around, house to house, for others to have a go on it. Imagine! A Walkman… man, it was so small compared to the huge cassette player I had bought him ten years previously and which was lugged around faithfully just the same. Then DVD players… and those minidisc things… home computers for goodness sakes… we bought them all early, for a fortune every time. It’s all on our phones now, and more, and it all costs less!

How things are done changes too of course. I know the world is a different place, but my ‘hen night’ was a boozy mistake of a party. One night ending in a pile of puke, shortly before my wedding day, and I know all my friends did the same. Now, it’s weekends in Prague, or a week on Ibiza! I couldn’t have contemplated that. ‘Newly weds’ are often late 30s… older… with whole lives behind them and they have already lived together for years or have kids, perhaps even together, before marriage is even mentioned. Even younger ones wouldn’t dream of moving into a house without having, well, everything, first. Some things are better right enough.

Music changes too. I remember as a teenager, the phrase ‘it’ll never take the place of music’ being said about a favourite ‘album’ of ours, by ‘the older generation’. How we laughed. Look now… I cannot get my head around some of the stuff they call ‘music’ now and it will never take the place of music! It’s like, what goes around, comes around. But our music was the best. Said our parents.

I can appreciate loads of music from before my generation I just often find myself unable to follow new stuff at all, and yet kids belt it out… you see them at filmed concerts, and the new ‘stars’ of today have just as huge followings as the stars did when we were kids. The musicians of my generation (yes, I hear myself saying it, bah) are still great musicians though. I just cannot imagine anyone getting nostalgic for techno though! Mind you, I can’t differentiate one track from another, nor one ‘producer’ from the other, and I know people can.

Nostalgia eh? We’ve managed to see most of our ‘heroes’ live in concert, if not at the time we first knew them, then at silver, hell, golden anniversary tours, and they were (are) still great although I prefer it if the likes of Jagger doesn’t jump around as he used to... really too old. But I still hear myself say ‘these new fly-by-nights will never be having reunion tours’… followed by headline news of ‘Take That’ already doing similar (for instance, and they were my kids’ generation). It won’t happen with the new, new ones though! Will it?

I honestly think, if the dead could come back (never mind The Rapture, just plain old visiting) they would run back to wherever they came from. Everything gets faster, louder, crasser, cheaper, madder, ruder… All. The. Time. And doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon. Despite lockdowns and viruses. Will there be a limit? Or will it all go ‘retro’ at some point?

I do try to keep up. I’m not in my box yet. And yet, there seems to come a point when you just turn into the old person that says ‘remember when…’ all the time. This all may or may not have to do with me researching things on genealogy sites and ‘finding’ evidence of direct family from way back, who couldn’t have imagined the world of today in their wildest dreams. Even my parents were around long before regular flights abroad were ‘normal’ (never mind even considered for hen nights!).

So hold on to your hats you young things. It’s going to be a wild ride… assuming us lot leave enough of the planet around for you to ride on.

Positive

I have to be more positive.

All this Covid shite - it’s hard to see the good side to that, though. There isn’t a good side to that!

Mind you, there are nice little news items of people helping people. Selflessly like. Of course, there are nice things out there, uplifting stuff. Just need to be more open to it. All the clapping for nurses is long gone I noticed.

Never realised this vibe of negativity before. That’s not me. I’m a wee ray o’ sunshine, me! Am I not?

Apparently not. Well, that’s depressing! I don’t want to be contributing to anyone else’s ‘hard times’ so… have to think. Have to just be more positive. Now that I’m confronting myself with this, it turns out to be harder than I’ve ever imagined it to be. I’m a ‘glass half full’ kind of gal, me. I am!

I’m the one always looking for the bright side to things. Excusing really bad actions by… whoever… strangers even, as ‘must be a reason for them doing that’.

I’m the one who doesn’t get immediately mad at slights or put-downs as ‘not meant that way’… I’m always looking for the positives. I’m not cynical at all. Am I? Have I become so?

Maybe it’s an age thing? Accounting for all the grumpy old folks out there hah! Maybe even the happiest person gets cut down with the mounting pile of pure badness in the world, the longer they live?

Wait though, this is not being positive, this is looking for crap stuff and reasons for miserableness.  Okay. Right. Positive. Think fairies and unicorns and rainbows and wee baby toes and cute grandkids and Christmas coming and ‘next year will be good' and… sure, even the news does the ‘happy last item’ to cheer folks up after half an hour or so of gloom and doom. 

Right. It’s autumn, the place is looking lovely with the sun shining down today, leaves turning all shades of gorgeous and (dead hedgehogs aside) that should be enough to cheer anyone up. Even if you’re sick… with the Covid. Or if you’re stuck in hospital having just broken a hip, like the old neighbour, or… no, going wrong again.

This is hard! Positive, positive. Count my blessings, sure. That helps. There are many, I do know it. I’m still in love, know I’m loved, have a lovely family all round, all healthy, all doing well. Fabulous grandkids, can’t see some because of Covid… but no, not that… all doing great at school. We’re in good health, sun is shining… damn, said that already. Covid, Covid, Covid is all I keep returning to right now.

Seriously, it taints everything. Instead of ‘can’t travel yet’, maybe I should say, ‘we’ll be able to travel soon’? See the wee spin I put on that? Is that not just trying to fool myself though? No, no, I’m just bucking myself up. I’ll need to watch that though, can’t be going around with blinkers to the shit-storm that is the world right now. Or maybe I should think of that as ‘a world in crisis which is on the way to being a better place for all!’ There you go!

See, I can do it. I honestly think this is quite new for me, this ‘sounding negative’ but do think it’s also to do with waking up, somewhat. Finally waking up to the fact… fact!... that not everyone is a nice person, even if you do try to believe it until stamped-on-your-face-proven. I think, too, that I blame the Big Orange Creep that troubled the world for far too long recently. And his Blow Job of a counterpart this side of the Atlantic. We’ve all been bombarded with their horribleness for so long it’s a wonder the world still exists at all. If they’re not the epitome of negativity and all things worrisome… well…

Goodness, that went downhill again, fast. I’m almost thinking that the most positive I can come up with is ‘I’m trying to be positive’! I will keep at it. Underneath, deep inside, I’m a positive person. Honestly. I’m thinking too, that maybe people notice it more when I’m negative (sounding) because they don’t expect it from me? Others get away with it more because it’s the way they’ve always been? My theory. All this reminds me about the likes of Robin Williams… now there’s a case in point. Comedians - spend their lives making people laugh and it turns out they’re themselves constantly deeply depressed. Did they use their humour to pull themselves through the day, or what?

I’m not depressed, not at all… wee tad despondent at various times, sure… I want to travel! I know I’m not alone there though. Especially now, we’re all in the same boat… oh don’t start me on refugees in boats. Positive, positive.

Lots of lovely people help refugees. Including the guy on trial right now, in Greece, accused of people-trafficking while only trying to help (I’m convinced!). Sure he will be vindicated. Yes, I’m sure. See I can do it. Just don’t think of why he even felt the need to go help anyway. Nope, not thinking of it.

I don’t want to just not think of things though. If everyone just shut their eyes to realities in the world where would that take us all? Bad things would happen for sure. We have folks on the ball though, right? Folks that will oh… make new vaccinations available, invent things to help the world survive climate impact, cure cancer finally... all of that. And I know the world will return to normal soon. Even if it’s a ‘new normal’. A liveable, happy, shiny world where truth and kindness prevails. We’re heading there right now. I just know we are.

I’m finishing this little essay on positivity here, on a high note, before it turns again. No, that’s not negative, shoosh you.

.....................

Addendum... not helpful, having composed this, you get a wee cartoony face at the bottom, advising you 'how your text may sound to readers'... and it's a screamy one, head all turned blue. I may just give up.

Swimmety swim swim

I’ve been and gone and done it. I’ve signed up. No getting out of it now, the monies are deducted and I’m tied to this for… months, years? When will I learn?

But no, be positive, it’s a good thing. Knowing me, if I don’t ‘sign up’, it just never will happen. This is good, this is clever, this is going to be fun.

Trying to put a positive swing on it, I rummage around in my shelves to dig out the long-hidden swimming costume. So much has not even been possible this last long while (Covid restrictions) that it hasn’t seen the light of day in ages and I’m just hoping there’s exponentially more elastic in the thing than it was probably manufactured to have. Because let’s face it, my skin has had to be… erm… elastic - ‘this last long while’ too.

It’s why I’m doing this. That, and the still-not-certain wedding coming up. I’ve tried the obvious, like ‘eat less and move more'. Turns out, you need to actually eat less and move more for any kind of difference to be made! Who knew! I’ve tried the ‘avoid eating xx’ and the ‘use this supplement (x23)’ and I even took to walking (slightly) more, but, surprise, surprise… all to no avail. The only consolation has been that my wrinkles are all puffed out so I, obvs, look younger. Fatter, but younger. Bit of a ‘you scratch my back…’ situation going on there. It’s not all doom and gloom.

So, the cozzy. Hmm. Best not to look in the mirror with the lights actually on, but it’s not too bad. Shorts to cover the worst of the ills, baggy top that, if I stand THIS way, hides those bits… hmm. Will do. It's called a two-piece, while not actually a bikini... oh, a tankini, that's it... I'm just a bit miffed at that though... who are they calling a tank?!

Anyway, we went. Fun ensued just trying to open the locker via the onboard computer (!) and I paid double for it somehow. Why you need to be tech-savvy to use a bloody pool locker is beyond me (as was how to punch in the necessary code) but with a wee smile at the guy, he fixed it for us. Between the closing and opening of said locker, we had a wee swim, a looong languish, blethering in the Jacuzzi, and another wee swim. A cuppa in the canteen ensued, once I’d found her, after sitting waiting on her for ages (I left by one door, she left by another). Next time we will be taking an actual class with exercises in the water. We might resort to ‘our relaxed method’ after trying that, but we’ll see. The idea is to move more… more than we probably did on our own.

I’ll let you know when the difference shows. I rather like the swimming pool job as you don’t get all sweaty and exhausted with it all, but I do hate getting dry in those little cubicles. There’s always a used plaster on the floor or hairs lying about and I never do get properly dry before getting dressed. Still, it’s at least doing something and it’s not expensive. Even I know there will be no miracle transformations happening any time soon, but nobody can say I’m not trying to look after myself.

 

Med-El Advocates Online

Over the weekend there, 2 and 3 October, Med-El HQ in Innsbruck held a ZOOM conference for interested parties, called Advocates Online. As a Med-El HearPeers wearer of their RONDO2 and an ‘experienced user’, I signed up and tuned in.

I think since the restrictions of COVID-19, we’ve all become pretty much abreast with the technology necessary for the use of laptops to communicate via video link, and Zoom is just another one of those. Even I manage it, although I tend to end up with way too many windows open, before going through the whole ‘can you hear me/can you see me’ routine. I get there eventually though and this was the biggest number of attendees I’ve been involved with. Fifty-five at one point, from all corners of the globe.

Subtitles were available in lots of languages, but I managed better without, as they didn’t run synchronously. I believe the glitch was sorted out by the end of the first day but I hear well enough through my laptop speakers, thanks to my RONDO2. I just did without.

Throughout Day 1, we were given a tour of the offices and labs and ‘met’ some of the people involved in actually making our implants and processors. Was fun to read ‘and this is xx who made Caroline’s implant’ but I suspect it was probably more random names to pictures. Nice idea though.

There was a choice of workshop and I chose the one called ‘Ask Us Anything’… chiefly because I blinked and missed how to get to the other one called ‘Hearing Implant Surgeon for a Day’ and didn’t want to interrupt proceedings to get there. The one for questions was good though and my own query was answered fairly satisfactorily. It really made you feel involved. The first day lasted from 16:00 until 18:15.

 

Here's me not looking very attentive in the top row there.

I was a bit late logging into day two and left early as I wasn’t really up for more of it, but thoroughly enjoyed hearing about, and from, two huge advocates of Med-El: Vera (Russia and Canada) and Mary-Beth (USA). Strange to hear their voices indeed. I missed ‘meeting’ the CEO, but perhaps next time.

We have all since received a very handy .pdf with lots of tips on it. Basically, Med-El, rocks. All in all, a worthwhile experience and if I’m ever in Innsbruck, I will be knocking on the door for a face-to-face tour. 

Some handy youtube links

Grounds for Divorce

Apparently, I snore. AND the rest! Now, this is nothing new. What IS new, is him refusing to listen any longer and decamping to the spare room. I don’t really blame him, but I’m a perfectly lovely bedfellow otherwise I’m sure?

It’s comical in a way as I have been sending links on various ‘cures’ for snoring to others with horrendously snoring husbands (you know who you are!) and here it’s me that is the prime candidate. I’m also up at the loo 2 and 3 times a night (disturbing), cough, and clear my throat continually this last six months (uber-disturbing and apparently the last straw) and have a tendency for jumpy legs which disturbs me too, have to say. So I can’t really blame him but still do not approve. We’ll be getting separate hotel rooms on holiday next!

He is ‘lucky’ that I’m so deaf because I just know he snores to beat the band himself! The fact that the smoke alarm could go off and the fire brigade hack into the window and still not have me hear anything, is beside the point. Burglars could come and go with impunity, I’d be quite jocose as long as I didn’t see them. They wouldn’t disturb me unless they physically rolled me out of bed. Well, then of course there would be all hell to pay (not least because they’d be plucking out their eyes at the sight of me) and they needn’t think they can come and burgle me now because he hears pins drop on cushions from three flights up. Or biscuit tins being surreptitiously opened. Equally irritating!

I am wondering though, would ear-plugs not cover more disturbances made by me? Everybody surely turns over in bed a few times so it can’t be just that. It’s the ‘noises’. I apparently run the whole gamut of nightly noises, plus the coughing and spluttering that has held on for way too long now to be at all conducive to a happy marriage. So I can imagine him lying there, seething, thinking of ways to do away with me and finally capitulating to the call of the spare bed.

The flipside of all this is that he near gave me (and by consequence, himself) a heart attack the other night. He’d thought, ‘give it a go’ and joined me in the marital bed. When you go to sleep alone and you suddenly feel the bed wobble… well. ‘Who’s there?!!’ My yell had him near leap out of bed in one go. I of course immediately realised, gave him a pat, (‘oh, it’s you’, I don’t really remember) turned over, and started snoring again (I’m reliably told). He lay there with his heart pounding in his throat having to listen to me for another hour before giving in and stomping off to his quiet corner upstairs. So, give him his due, he does try and put up with me.

My jumpy legs are also why we rarely watch a film together. That, and of course my inability to follow a story without asking questions, or speculating on next moves, or speaking to the characters performing whichever scenario they find themselves in. I don’t do it in the cinema (although we rarely go) as you have to whisper there, and then I don’t hear the response. At home though, how can you not? I hear myself even when watching stuff alone. So there’s that.

There are enough irritations around here (sufficient for a whole book, probably) without me manifesting as THE irritant to beat all irritants. I’m well aware of my shortcomings and don’t want them to multiply to divorce degree. So, c’mere you Internet and supply me with at least a decent snore prevention kit. I refuse to let 50+ years of sleeping together end in separate beds!