Hell-Cyon Summer

The days are noticeably shorter, the evenings are drawing in.

Even though Environment Canada forecasts we’ll have Summer-ish/Autumn-ish weather until well into October, I can feel the change of seasons in my bones – specifically my knee bones.

Now that the cortisone shot to my knee has completely worn off, I’m back to where I was four months ago, mobility wise, staggering around using my two trusty walking sticks, and trying to adapt to every change in atmospheric pressure (usually a fast moving storm-front) that affects my joints.

I read the other day that our good old climate crisis, which creates, among other things, fast moving, swiftly changing atmospheric phenomena, can result in them’s of us wot are prone to migraines, to experience them at even more severe galaxy-busting levels of ‘owwie-ness’ than we already do.

My migraine scale of ‘owwie-ness’ starts at the base level of ‘planet-busters, (just your every-day skull-crusher) and slides up to ‘galaxy crushers’. (which is the sort where the sound of a mouse squeaking a kilometer away causes the most exquisite pain) Fun times ahead on that score I suppose.

-oOo-

More than 30,000 people have been evacuated in one area alone due to the wildfires, this month. Whole villages have burned to the ground.

I try and maintain some sort of equilibrium when I listen to reports of the devastation on the radio, but I find my tears flow none-the-less.

I’ve lived through wildfires (bushfires, for my Aussie mates) when I lived in Australia. They were a part of the landscape. I never expected to be doing the same thing here …

-oOo-

… here, I sit on our balcony on a Saturday afternoon, sipping my tea. Mrs Widds sits across from me, she’s a coffee woman, reading.

In this moment our world is quiet. Even the soft breeze that rustles the first golden leaves of Autumn seems quiet.

And yet, the sky is tinged with the shadows of drifting smoke, occasionally bringing with it the smell of stale ash and displaced lives.

-oOo-

A curious bee hovers over my pen as I make notes for this blog post.

We’re often visited by bees when we sit out here. Perhaps they’re studying us, taking notes, as though assessing our suitability as neighbours and co-caretakers of this little piece of Land.

-oOo-

We’ve lived here now through a full cycle of Seasons. We know what to expect as each one arrives, changes the landscape, and departs. We also expect that, as they did last year, they will bring with them un-known extremes. (looking at you -40°C)

-oOo-

Mrs Widds has finished her book and is pootling around in the kitchen making ‘left-over’ pies. That’s where she gathers all the bits of leftovers from the freezer, including, this time, some absolutely delicious-smelling butter chicken sauce, and chucks them into a big pot. She adds a few pie-ish veggies, spoons the mixture into her freshly made pastry pie-bowls, and into the oven they go.

-oOo-

This weekend we’re working on our trailer. (RV) There’s the regular yearly maintenance-y tasks, and then there’s the ‘just in case we have to evacuate too’, restocking tasks.

Just because we live in a relatively built-up suburban area doesn’t mean we’re impervious to calamity.

I wish that wasn’t the case.

I wish that bears weren’t wandering through the main streets of Prince George. Hungry because the heat ripened their berry harvest early and now there’s not enough for them to eat in the wild. Human carelessness provides them with a source of food, and thereby endangers their lives.

I wish these grave times weren’t upon us, that the tranquility I find sitting on our balcony writing and listening to the leaves rustling in the breeze could last longer than this one afternoon … but wishing won’t make it so.

In these ‘Interesting Times’, it becomes imperative that we find our ‘islands of calm and sanity, in oceans of chaos’.

This gently passing afternoon has been one such island for me.

I hope you find yours too.

-oOo-

Left-over’ pies in the making. The saucepan lid is the perfect size for the pie lids – Synchronicity!

Left-over’ pies in the making. The saucepan lid is the perfect size for the pie lids – Synchronicity!

Straight from the oven, and just before they get ‘et

Straight from the oven, and just before they get ‘et

A bonus – Leftover fruit tarts

A bonus – Leftover fruit tarts

Also, straight from the oven, and just before they get ‘et

Also, straight from the oven, and just before they get ‘et

Pheasants, and Mooses, and …

… and … Bears. Oh My!

First we had pheasants, and mooses – mum and two little ‘uns, …

 … now we have been visited by another mum, with a baby in tow. I don’t know much about when Mum bears give birth, but it does seem a little late in the season for a baby to be this small …

None the less, herewith be our latest visitors …

First spotted loitering around the compost bins

First spotted loitering around the compost bins

… which they were singularly uninterested in, which is a good thing, it means that the bins are working and breaking down the separate ingredients into a wonderful mulch-y compost, ready for next years’s gardens …

Close-up – checking out the bins

Close-up – checking out the bins

“Nothing to eat in there,” Mum says. “Come along.”

“Nothing to eat in there,” Mum says. “Come along.”

Mum heads off to greener pastures. Baby checks out this funny blue stuff, and – “I wonder if I can eat it.”

Mum heads off to greener pastures. Baby checks out this funny blue stuff, and – “I wonder if I can eat it.”

Mum (from behind the RV) – “You come here, this instant!” ... Baby (reluctantly abandoning the interesting blue stuff) – “Yes, mum.”

Mum (from behind the RV) – “You come here, this instant!” … Baby (reluctantly abandoning the interesting blue stuff) – “Yes, mum.”

August

August, eh? How the bloody hell did that happen?

Funny, isn’t it, how we never seem to experience time as it really is? It always passes too fast or too slow for us impatient and dissatisfied wee humans. No wonder we’re so enamoured of time-travel stories.

-oOo-

I’ve been chugging along here in our ‘House of Many Staircases’, jousting with multiple health issues, as usual, (which is a rather depressing modifier) and gradually chipping away at the tasks that are seemingly never-ending when one lives in a house this big and still getting things sorted.

A big part of it is preparing for the sort of seasonal extremes that we never had to bother with on Widder Island. There, it rained, a lot, in winter and got colder, and summer it rained, a lot, and got hotter. Not here though. Here we go from 2 meters of snow and -25C-ish in the winter, to wildfire smoke, frequent and impressively violent thunderstorms, and 25C-ish in the summer.

-oOo-

The smoke in July lasted a couple of weeks, thankfully we weren’t in the firing line for any actual fires, but they are an ever-present threat in the Interior now, no matter where we live.

I am now fluent in the language of HEPA and MERV. No, these aren’t two characters in a new story I’m working on, (mind you, the names are evocative – must think thoughts) they’re the latest acronyms to cross my path.

MERV stands for Minimum Efficiency Rating Value, and is an indicator of an air filter’s ability to capture larger particles between 0.3 and 10 microns. (a micron being one millionth of a meter) I needed to know this in order to purchase large size filters to go on our windows to restrict the smoke particles from the wildfires entering into the house and thence into our lungs. Turns out we needed filters with a MERV of 11-13

HEPA, High Efficiency Particulate Air (filters) are the pleated type of air filters that one needs to choose one’s MERV rating from.

There you go, don’t you feel smarter now?

-oOo-

I’m also becoming fluent in ZOOM, not another sort of wildfire smoke management resource, but the talking to other humans via my computer microphone and camera, sort of resource.

And therein lies another story with perhaps more interesting and/or perhaps more useless information for me to impart.

One of the things my ortho suggested I do to prep for my knee surgery was to attend this clinic that is specifically designed to get me to surgery in the best possible physical shape. (It’s called ‘Get To Surgery’ – talk about K.I.S.S. branding!)

I’m working on three things:

1 – Adjust my nutrition. The clinic tested my blood for everything under the sun, (and quite a few things above the moon) which suggested I need to be eating a few things differently.

I don’t eat unhealthily but I have a natural tendency to be lacking in the very nutritional elements that I need to be not lacking in to optimise my surgical chances. Food experiments! I’m all up for that.

2 – Exercise. I’m probably 9 months out from surgery by now and I’m working on those specific muscles and flexibility I’m going to need on the other side of all this.

Fortunately the cortisone shot enabled me to kick-start the process, but unfortunately, the effects are starting to wearing off. (and I did so enjoy the lack of pain-n-agony every day, but the Law of Diminishing Returns, with regards to the shots, means that I need to strrrretch the time between them for as long as possible) I’m adapting as required. It has its up’s and down’s … and side stretches and …

3 – Lose the extra kilos I’m carrying. Ah, this is the hard one, isn’t it?

Well, maybe, not so much. (I’m going to paraphrase the science here, but if you want the non-paraphrased version you can check out the clinic’s webpage, and/or watch the video – the good stuff starts at about 7 minutes)

Turns out there are two main drivers to blame for our bodies storing extra fat. One is our stomach, which, whenever it’s empty sends out these hormones that scream to our brain that it’s STARVING and we’re going to die, right there on the spot! Bloody drama queen, I say! The brain goes, ‘yeah’ yeah’, and stores more fat to shut the damn thing up.

The other driver is our small intestine, which, when digesting, sends a hormone to the brain that says it’s full and to please stop storing more fat because we’re NOT going to die of starvation!

I have a weird mental image of my stomach and small intestine as this elderly couple who’ve been having the same argument for the entire length of their relationship. Kind of like Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens. (a brilliant series from the UK. Season 2 has just been released and it’s just as brilliant as Season 1)

The trick is to switch off the stomach hormone more often and encourage the small intestine hormone to stay engaged.

There are drugs that do these things, (and why bariatric surgery works for some people) but I’m not going in that direction because, they’re hideously expensive, and even if we could afford them, they’re a very long-term not-exactly-a-solution solution, and I’m not that keen on voluntarily ingesting any more substances that ought not to be in my body than I absolutely have to.

My alternative, which isn’t for everybody, is to regularly have a bit of food in my gizzards, just keep the engine ticking over, (eat small amounts, of the right stuff, in the right order, over longer periods) so that my stomach shuts the hell up with the ‘STARVING’ hormone messaging and my small intestine is happily digesting and sending happy hormones to my brain.

We’ll see what sort of difference parts 1, 2, and 3, make by the time my surgery does roll around.

So, why have I been fluent-ing in ZOOM? Because the clinic is in Vancouver, almost 800 kilometers away, and I don’t have a private jet, and I have bi-monthly appointments with the clinic.

I’ve never gotten into video conferencing, never had any call to get into it before this, but the whole experience is rather an adventure … and I’m always up for an adventure.

Waterbottles Of A Different Sort

For some bizarre and ultimately unknowable reason, my last post, ‘Spunds Like A Goid Idea’, is getting hammered with spam. I’ve turned the comments off and on a few times and that seems to have slowed the deluge somewhat. So, apologies to any humans who wanted to comment and got caught up in the non-human-generated mayhem.

-oOo-

And now, for my second entry into  the Four ‘R’s’, (Spunds Like A Goid Idea’, being the first) I give you the ‘umble water-cooler bottle …

Remember back in winter during that -40° ‘cold spell’, and our waterpipes froze for three days? Well, apart from melting snow, (of which we had an overwhelming abundance) for non-ingesting consumption, (flushing the toilet, etc) Mrs Widds hunted and gathered a bunch of these water-cooler bottles that were on sale because the tops were smushed in and unusable on top of water-coolers. (for the purposes of ingesting consumption – food and beverages)

They saved us from a fate worse than spending a lot more money on silly little 1 liter (more or less) single use bottled water, but what to do with these bottles when they were empty?

They sat in the storage room for a few months while we thunked thoughts – aka forgot about them entirely.

We could’ve taken them to the recycling depot, of course, but then we had a wonderful idea.

… an explanatory note …

In our efforts to grow as much of our culinary needs as possible, (supply chain/food insecurity/out-of-control shrinkflation being what is, and not going to get any better) we’re experimenting with all sorts of seeds in all sorts of containers, in all sorts of positions around the house, (inside and outside) to see what works as the season progresses, and what doesn’t. Whilst at the same time experimenting with different types of garden bed construction.

We also keep our purchasing footprint as small as we can, without shooting ourselves in the foot, buy in bulk, seasonally, etc and, can, dehydrate, freeze as much as we can. That’s all working out rather well so far, so we’re going to keep on keeping on making all sorts of experiments and taking lots of notes for next year, when hopefully we’ll have most of the kinks ironed out.

… end of note …

Not long ago we bought some tomato plants to tide us over. (until our tiny seedlings came of age) It was obvious the poor things were terribly rootbound in their far-too-small pots, and something had to be done.

Enter our empty water-cooler containers.

With a judicious application of sharp pointy knives to their top bits they could be adapted to stand in as replacement pots.

So I set to … then Mrs Widds had a thought … what if?

What if, we cut the bottoms off as well as the tops and stood them right on the ground? That way the tomato roots, once they’d run out of room in the pot, could wend their merry way down into the earth beneath, thereby breaking down the packed clay-y soil for the good of worms and assorted beasties of the underworld.

And so I did …

The dismemberment has begun!

The dismemberment has begun!

-oOo-

It occurred to me a little while ago that doubt, is simply the combination of fear of failure and lack of information. Any thoughts?

-oOo-

Anyway, after The Dismemberment, we pootled down to the front yard and placed our bottomless pots on a suitable piece of ground and filled them with potting soil, liberated the poor ‘maters from their confinement, and voila! …

All pretty maids in a row, erm, circle

All pretty maids in a row, erm, circle

But what to do with the tops and bottoms though? After more thinking of thunks, with a bit of wire, (always have some wire with you at all times, and duct tape) and strategically placed tiny drainage holes, I created this …

Flowerpots!

Flowerpots!

We didn’t get around to seeding them until recently, but here they are, pots-in-waiting …

On the balcony until sprouting time, then it’s off to various locations to fulfill their destiny

On the balcony until sprouting time, then it’s off to various locations to fulfill their destiny

We’re already harvesting a variety of herbs. It’s such a great feeling to be able to eat what we’ve grown.

-oOo-

Unfortunately in the grander scheme of things we’re at the mercy of extreme weather events, climate crisis, and the consequences thereof. This was the sunset this evening through my study window …

Fire in the sky

Fire in the sky

We’ve been surrounded by wildfire smoke for the last three days, and it’ll probably be at least another three before it clears enough for me to go outside without coughing up my toes after a few minutes of breathing the ‘air’.

Interesting times, indeed.

Spunds Like A Goid Idea

I’ve been going outside in the late-ish afternoon and doing a bit of gardening/groundwork. There’s lots to do and I am managing to do a bit every day. (thank you cortisone)

The other day it was 32°, in the shade, (the 72° temperature difference between now and six months ago when it was -40°, in the sun, is a monumental mind-boggle!) and I decided that discretion being the better part of not going out in the midday sun, canceled that part of my daily activities.

When I texted Mrs Widds the news she replied, (via auto-correct or speech-to-text) ‘spunds like a goid idea’.

-oOo-

So, continuing my run of goid spunding ideas, here’s another one …

… it’s mosquito season. They love me and I hate them … I suspect the ones around here are as a result of an illicit breeding program between B52 bombers and vampires!

Our house has ten awning and casement windows, (‘casement’ are the ones with the hinges on the side and ‘awning’ are the ones with the hinges on the top. She’s an odd sort of gal, but we love her) only two of which have flyscreens.

No problem, I hear you say, just tack up some mesh and you’re good to go.

Not quite. We also want to be able to open and close the windows, and therein lies my challenge.

I have to design and construct temporary screens, (nothing permanent, cos we’re renting) for 8 windows, (all different sizes and shapes, mind you) that won’t cost the earth, (because each one has to be custom-made) and that allows the handle that opens and closes the window to be accessible, with the materials we have on hand.

We have lots of cardboard boxes left over from our move. I’ve been saving the clean ones, (that don’t have any plastic ink signage on them) to make a whole lot of no-dig garden beds this year, ready for planting next year. (but that’s another post)

Lots of cardboard …

This is about a quarter of what we have. More are squashed flat behind this lot. The rest contain bits-and-bobs we haven’t found places for yet

This is about a quarter of what we have. More are squashed flat behind this lot. The rest contain bits-and-bobs we haven’t found places for yet

… so I thought, why not? …

A gathering of crafty bits

A gathering of crafty bits

As I started measuring, and cutting, and glue-erating, and designing, I discovered several things …

Cardboard engineering at its finest

Cardboard engineering at its finest

… long strips of cardboard glued together aren’t as strong as lots of little bits glued together – kind of like a brickwork wall … and … cardboard will always bow in the direction of the last layer of glue – requiring the frame to be flipped over (and weighted down) many times during the drying process …

My bespoke weights – not too heavy, not too light, and well read 😊

My bespoke weights – not too heavy, not too light, and well read 😊

I glued two layers of the frame together, then stapled the flyscreen to the board to hold it in place, then glued a third layer/frame on top to hold the screen in place as well, and give the whole thing a bit of extra strength.

And voilà! The first prototype, in situ …

No mozzies getting through this shield, baby!

No mozzies getting through this shield, baby!

I sealed the frame with varathane, (which is a polyurethane sealant for wood, but works just fine with cardboard) to, a) prevent moisture getting into the frame when there’s a lot of it in the air, evenings, rainy days, etc, and b) provide a little more rigidity.

So, there you have it, the four ‘R’s’ – cardboard repurposed, reused, recycled, and (technically) repaired, cos I did fix some dents and creases in the cardboard as I went.

Only 7 more to go.

Going, Green

During the merry, merry month of April, I took a series of pictures from the same place on our balcony just to document the process of the Great Snowmelt of 2023.

We went from 2 meters, (in most places) of snow on the ground …

Going …

Snow, snow, everywhere

Snow, snow, everywhere

Going …

Less snow and maybe a little shallower

Less snow and maybe a little shallower

Going …

Emegherd! Bare ground!

Emegherd! Bare ground!

Gone …

Well, not quite – there’s always one holdout

Well, not quite – there’s always one holdout

… to this …

Green …

Annnd, green everywhere

Annnd, green everywhere

… in a single month.

I love this place!

Aftershots – The Post-Cortisone Injection Update

I firmly believe that wait-times in doctors offices and/or hospital waiting rooms are specifically designed to be just a tad long er than they need to be, so that any anxiety the patient has is replaced by boredom.

However …

Young Dr ‘Butcher’, (his name is spelled differently but in the interests of protecting his anonymity we’ll stick with this) was his usual friendly self, and efficient with the local anesthetic injection and the cortisone one. In no time at all Mrs Widds and I were back outside blinking in the morning sunshine like a pair of owls.

Within a couple of hours I noticed an appreciable lessening of the stiffness in the back of my knee, and by bedtime nothing, NOTHING, hurt at all!

It’s not permanent, of course, and I still have to be careful of my knee because in spite of the absence of pain-and-agony, the damage is still there, but Heavens to Murgatriod! This feels fantastic!

Post-Orthopod Visit Report, And Other Stuff

My inaugural visit to an orthopaedic surgeon has happened and he was as nice as I’d hoped, (why do they look younger and younger every time I see them these days though?) and the examination was as painful as I feared.

We agreed that full knee replacement was necessary, (both knees actually but my right knee is so banged up that he was happy to start with the simpler – at least from his point of view – one first)

His wait time is around a year. (I wasn’t impressed either, nor was I surprised though, times being as interesting as they are these days) … in the meantime, I’m going to start a series of cortisone injections to reduce the inflammation and pain levels in my left knee. The effects from each shot should last anywhere from 3 to 6 months, which will give me, in the short term, more mobility and range of movement in the joint so I can build up the strength and flexibility in my leg muscles, quads, hamstrings, etc, to maximise the new joint when it comes around.

It’s a good plan, the best one we could agree on given the state of my inner-knee bits.

The first cortisone shot is next week – so, interesting times ahead.

-oOo-

In the interests of educating myself on the intricacies of a complete knee replacement surgery I ventured forth unto YouTube and viewed a spectacularly detailed video of a complete knee replacement surgery, that was accompanied by both audio and closed captioning descriptions of exactly what I was looking at.

It was not for the faint of heart. It was, in fact, excruciatingly brutal. I felt physically ill by the time the video ended. (thankfully the 1-2 hour-ish long surgery was edited down to 15 minutes) However, it was also very informative, and I have a much clearer idea of what is going to happen.

But, yeah, never going to watch another video on knee surgery again. Ever.

-oOo-

We’ve had an influx of Spring fauna here in our little corner of the world.

We’ve heard a woodpecker pecking wood (at least that’s what Mrs Widds told me it was, being from another antipodal hemisphere the only woodpecker I’d ever heard was the cartoon variety) for a few days, but couldn’t spot the wee beasties anywhere … then, lo-and-behold, a pair dropped by just as I was passing a window with my trusty phone in hand … and this is what I captured …

 

… after the slaking of thirsts and the hunting of bugs was complete they departed, squawking a few choice comments to each other, and to my surprise and delight, they sounded almost exactly like the afore mentioned cartoon character … my gob was suitably smacked!

-oOo-

I’d seen their tracks in the snow, I’d caught them trotting around the corner of the house out of the corner of my eye, but until the other day, they hadn’t been standing still long enough to get a good look at them.

Mrs Widds saw them first, being up and gadding about the house long before I surface at the crack of 9’o’clock in the morning, and came and woke me up … this is what we saw …

Mother Moose – from a distance

Mother Moose – from a distance

Mother Moose – Up close and personal

Mother Moose – Up close and personal

Twin Baby Mooses in the front yard, about to bolt because they’d lost sight of mum

Twin Baby Mooses in the front yard, about to bolt because they’d lost sight of mum

Twins!!!

The Tealeaf’s Lament

I’ve been a bit poorly of late but I’m on the mend now, (the not-terrible stage of recovery) so here’s another of my ‘things I have thunked’ posts …

First up, another entry into the Secret Lives Of Inanimate Objects … (that I briefly indulged in, in my previous post)

The tealeaf limped to the edge of the pot,
Done in by water too hot.
And bravely clung to the lip and looked out,
Across the tea-tray that cared not one jot.

For tea-trays thought themselves above all of that,
Concerned only for appearances sake.
The shape of the jug, the position of the spoon,
And the perfectly sliced piece of cake.

Undaunted, the tealeaf persisted,
In its quest for the meaning beyond.
And it wriggled and squiggled to the tea-tray below
And landed before that worthy could respond.

But our tealeaf never got any further,
Because the tray was emptied down the sink.
And down through the pipes the tealeaf was washed,
To the sewer below before it could blink.

Our adventurer was in big trouble now,
‘Cause all manner of monsters lurked down there.
Made up of the things humans flushed down their pipes,
All bound for who-knew-where.

The tealeaf scrunched itself into a ball,
That monsters could never find.
And thusly escaping their clutches,
Until it was long gone, out of sight and of mind.

(Well, this turned out rather more dramatic than I anticipated. It initially began as part of the internal dialogue my fevered mind kept me awake with during the above mentioned ‘poorly-ness’. For five very long hours one night it was running through showtunes from just about every musical I’ve ever seen – The Sound of Music, (of course – Julie Andrews being my first girl-crush) Brigadoon, Calamity Jane, (Doris Day being a close second) Chicago, Cabaret, Oklahoma, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, (I mean, what’s a good sing-a-long if it doesn’t include at least one song) Phantom Of The Opera, Mary Poppins, (Julie, again) The Rose (classic Bette Midler) just to name a few, and in amongst all that, somehow, the story of the tealeaf was born … anyway, back to the story …)

Long days passed, and alone in the dark,
The tealeaf sang every song that it knew.
To distract itself from grief and regret,
And hoping its spirit to renew.

But tealeaves don’t live forever,
No matter how hard they pine.
By the time it reached the end of the pipe,
It had reached the edge of the line.

As the sun set over the ocean blue,
The tealeaf looked out on a vista so vast.
Its adventure had ended, as adventures do,
And it decomposed, at peace, at last.

But that isn’t the end of its story,
For in its breast it had nurtured a seed.
That sprouted and grew with green leaves unfurled
Until someone called it a weed.

Just as this new life was about to be uprooted,
By someone who a gardener, was not.
A screech and a caterwaul stayed their hand just in time,
And the seedling planted tenderly in a pot.

It now sits in a sunny corner
Of a Garden, on a shelf, with a view
Awaiting its uncertain future
Which will probably conclude in a brew.

-oOo-

My first visit to an orthopedic surgeon, (a bloke with the unfortunate name of ‘Butcher’) will be at the end of this month, April! … call me gobsmacked! I wasn’t expecting anything to happen for at least another six months.

This visit’s just a ‘getting to know you’ sort of thing … he’ll peer at my x-rays and poke/prod/bend my knees in all sorts of ways they will certainly not approve of … I’ll concentrate very hard on not tensing up as my pain threshold is trampled over … and we’ll discuss the next steps forward.

-oOo-

A little something from Mother Nature to remind me that although the snow has now melted down to only about a meter deep, and it rained wet watery stuff the other day, we’re still only reaching daytime temperatures of around 5°C …

A snowstorm …

 

Dis-Ability

Every so often, when I’m feeling poorly, I ask myself how the bloody hell I manage to get through the worst days  … when every sense is surrounded by a miasma of pain, every movement is weighed against how much energy it would take to overcome the physical resistance to voluntarily walking into that inferno?

When all the drugs do is push the pain away so that, although I don’t care so much, I can still feel it? … there’s no magic, (unless it’s the magic of sheer stubbornness) it’s all about the passage of time.

One minute flows into another, an hour passes, perhaps even a day or two.

The dark of the night fades and I unlock my weariness, stick my feet out from under the bedcovers, and stand up again.

-oOo-

Had to have a bit of a chuckle to myself at Spring Equinox … last year (2022) seemed to go on forever, (and we shan’t ever mention the preceding two, ever) but 2023 seems to be galloping along at a breathtaking rate of knots.

Is it just me?

-oOo-

I’d finished vacuuming, and as I was putting the infernal machine/appliance back in its cupboard I sensed an eerie presence emanating from the darkness within. A cold shiver wormed its way down my spine.

Malevolence lurked among the musty old coats and dusty boxes filled with best-forgotten memories.

I wondered, in that strange moment, suspended between washing dishes and preparing dinner,  do vacuum cleaners, in their lonely isolation between being let out to serve their creators, dream of world domination?

( apologies to Mr Philip K Dick, for taking liberties with the title of his rather intriguing story, (they’re all intriguing actually) ‘Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep’, which, incidentally, became the basis for the Blade Runner movie.

-oOo-

There are more and more birds flitting about, and soaring across the skies as it slowly warms up now.

It’s not ‘warm’, yet though. We’re still hitting double frozen digits of temperature at night, (and the snow is still piled up in measurable meters, all around me) and I haven’t seen the thermometer get above 5° during the day yet … but the birds have things to do and, well, t’is Spring after all.