Disrupted by Bertha

The weather is volatile. Thanks to the tail end of Bertha, there has been lashing rain, pinging hail, and skittish gusts of wind.  Dark vampire skies clear to strangely inappropriate sunshine. Minutes later the gloom returns. The whole business has churned up the sulky August torpor, and it's made me feel restless. Can't settle or focus. Unconstructive. As I type, I'm being distracted by the pigeon tree. Out of the corner of my eye I can see it waving in wild and extravagant swirls. For once, there are no pigeons.  Maybe they are preserving their dignity, as the tree is more bucking bronco than restful stoop.

A large moth is outside, bumbling at the window, desperately trying to
get in. What is a moth doing in daylight? And why is it trying to get in? The natural order is disrupted.

I am picking things up and putting them down and flailing about. Unlike the moth, I need to get out.

 

Don't Blame The Ball

The signs are there.  Some literal - the local PYO is displaying a board that reads 'Closed - End of Season', and the high street is full of 'Back To School' window stickers.  Some less so. On my run yesterday I noticed blackberries and fledgling conker cases.

Balls don't kill people.  Golfers do.

(I'm surprised I spotted these, given that I put on a turn of speed to get across the golf course as quickly as possible.  It's a public footpath, but dotted with sinister signs saying 'Beware of golf balls and golfers'*.  I am warier of the latter than the former.  Although a golfer without a ball is a paper tiger, unless you're within stick radius.  A ball without a golfer is entirely blameless.)

Everything's pointing to autumn.  Confusing because I have yet to go on holiday - fifteen days and counting. I will be coming back to mushrooms and jumpers.

Wrong. This is going to spin me out, man.  

Know your enemy

* I note there are no signs saying 'Careful - Public Footpath'. It's pretty clear who calls the shots round here. With a Big Bertha, no doubt.

Felled By Bow

Bow Fell.  I fell.

In early May I dislocated my finger. High up in the still-snowy folds of Bow Fell, I skidded on some loose shale, and caught my hand on an outcrop of rock. My finger looked so wrong that without thinking I snapped it back into position. It went numb and white and I thought I'd killed my own finger - bungling the relocation so badly that I'd cut off blood-supply and nerves. But before I'd had the chance to go down the gangrene-sets-in-and-the-finger-drops-off-before-you-can-get-to-a-hospital path, I started getting some feeling back. Pins and needles, and then a fair deal of pain - unpleasant but far more reassuring than numbness. Away from the fell-top cold, my finger swelled up like a sausage under the grill. The knuckle was blue-tinged, but with force it would still bend. So I reasoned it wasn't broken, and chose tea shop over casualty. Probably the closest I'm likely to come to cake or death.

Six weeks later, and it's pretty clear I should have chosen casualty. The finger is healing curled, so although I can bend it, I cannot straighten it. Belated visits to doctors and hospitals ('Why didn't you come earlier?'  'I thought it was only bent because of the swelling' etc etc). General medical consensus: my finger is fucked. Angry with self.

Go to physiotherapy in last ditch attempt to sort this out. Jermaine sucks his teeth, and makes me squeeze a tennis ball. He is surprised I've not been given a splint.

The Oval-8 - best in breed

I go online and buy a selection of splints. It's a three bears game - one is way too large; one is way too small, but one is just about right. Within days I can put my finger flat on the table. But unsupported for longer than a couple of minutes, my finger slowly starts to curl inwards again. So I leave the splint on.

Until earlier this week, when I lose it. Fear of finger curl drives me to force the small splint over my fat knuckle. Not easy or comfortable, but once on, this is a game-changer. It forces the swelling to go down and the finger to be ruler-straight.  

Why am I telling you this? Because you need to know that the best splint isn't always the most comfortable one. And that if given the choice of cake or casualty, you probably shouldn't choose cake.

Tender Tarmac

Winning vista

A Good Friday decision to spend Easter in the Peak District.  With spontaneity comes a dearth of accommodation, which leads to the unexpected.  A Spanish-themed hotel, located on a dual carriageway, opposite a 24hr Tesco?  Yes, thanks.  I enjoy the check-in process, especially when the receptionist asks 'Would you prefer a view of the dual carriageway or the car park?'

Tough question.  Both have merits, obviously.  Car park wins, but I can't pretend it's an easy choice.

Mam Tor.  A brute.

Hills and lambs and primroses and cowslips. And landslips. At the bottom of Mam Tor, the road just falls away into a yawning maw. Odd to see the authority of tarmac and white lines overruled by nature.

Owned by Mam

The earth has swallowed some parts completely, and crumpled others.  Like you might effortlessly screw up the foil of a Lindt bunny.*.

Thick chocolate (apparently)

Back at the hotel, I marvel at the tender beauty of the dual carriageway and the car park.  So fragile.

(* I use this as a random example, and not because I am the sort of person who would eat a Lindt bunny in its entirety, especially as it is common knowledge that the chocolate in the ear area is particularly thick, so this would make consuming a whole rabbit an act of immense greed.)  

Numan Intersection

I must face the sad fact that the season for Brussels sprouts is coming to an end.  Last night's candidates were sorry specimens, starting to yellow and soften.  I have late-onset enthusiasm for sprouts, having scorned them for years.  Hence the zeal - making up for lost time.

Over the weekend I watched a documentary about Gary Numan, 1980s electro-robot.  Like sprouts, he has never appealed to me.  Easy to dismiss and ridicule in his tin-foil and eyeliner.

I have changed my position.  I'd failed to understand how radically he influenced music.  I'd disregarded how heavily he's been sampled and covered.  And how fresh his old tracks still sound. Not softened, not yellowing.

There's a Venn within all of this.  You work it out.  I'm not going to spoon-feed you.

 

Perfume Ponce

Today reality imitates art as Richard E Grant officially becomes a 'perfumed ponce' with the launch of his first

Essence of Petunia

scent.  He's been busy with PR, and I've read several interviews detailing his life as an ardent nose - sniffing everything from old exercise books to narcissi.  As a fellow nose, I understand this.  I think I care about smell more than most. I have even broken off associations on the basis that someone smells wrong.  Not necessarily bad, just wrong. To me.  Similarly, I occasionally find people who smell right.  Not necessarily perfumed, just right.  To me.

Handily close

I am free for the first day in months, and the air is full of cherry blossom, magnolia and hyacinth.  Closer to the market, it's bacon - from the breakfast van that serves early morning rolls to the traders.  Frying bacon in fresh air always makes me think of Glastonbury - mingling with wood smoke and crushed grass and grass smoke.  Undercut by the impressive tang of the long-drops.  Pity the foolish virgins who think they've bagged a good spot, conveniently close to conveniences.  I love the pace of festival mornings, as people emerge bleary-eyed, croaky-throated, in search of tea.  I've no interest in boiling under nylon, so I'm up and out, watching the site come to life.  

No tickets this year.  Having to make do with an alternative.  Here's hoping it smells right.  Not wrong.       

Sideways Move

Reminded how much
I dislike Garfield.  Prick.

I am very much enjoying one of the neighbourhood cats. Overweight and exercise-shy, with plumy tail. The first time I saw him, he was eyeing the garden gate.  He concluded pretty quickly that there was no way in hell he would be jumping over, so he attempted to squeeze through the gap beneath.  Optimistic.

This cat crawls better

He ended up sprawled and pancaked, like one of those Garfield toys.  And stuck.  After fruitless failed-marine attempts at crawling, he turned on his side and bicycled wildly with back legs, slowly winning ground.

I've just spotted him again.  He doesn't even bother with considering a jump or a belly-down approach.  He has learned from experience, and now goes straight to his Heath Robinson sideways bicycle move.

If I had a cat, I'd want one like him.