Originally posted 30th November 2023
“Now the wintertime is coming
The windows are filled with frost
I went to tell everybody
But I could not get across"
Bob Dylan
I love the lead up to Christmas, possibly more than the day itself. We had a night in Edinburgh with its newly lit decorations. There is a carousel! I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Cannyrob bought my ticket and explained he would need to help me get onto my horse. I had trouble climbing on and got my right leg stuck round the pole. The man kindly waited for Cannyrob to help extricate my leg and get reseated on the back part of the saddle. See featured photo. The music started and I was off in my fantasy of golden horses flying through the sky looking up through the ornate tracery of the carousel roof. Bliss!
However, going out after a lot of staying in, walking to a restaurant, tram troubles, shopping centre, dogs in John Lewis (!) proved exhausting and stressful. It was good to return to home comforts, including my heated blanket. Lucy Mangan writes in the Guardian about how they provide temporary cocooning from all the bleakness of the world.
TAROT READING – THE LOVERS
This is a complicated card. A man and two very different women. Overhead is Cupid or Eros with bow and arrow. I can’t help relating this to my own situation. I wasn’t young when I met Cannyrob, but still youthful and independent. Several decades on I need looked after, the other woman. Will love’s magic still work? Interesting to find your own meaning in this…world leaders making choices?
READING, LISTENING AND WATCHING
I have read a lot this month, mainly due to taking to my bed while getting over a chest infection. Well that’s my excuse!
Now She Is Witch by Kirsty Logan is a book I loved. It reminds me of the fairytales I immersed myself in as a child but with a strong feminist theme. Poetic, violent and mesmerising.
CJ Cooke is another Scottish Gothic author. I started with The Ghost Wood, then The Nesting, The Lighthouse Witches and finally, A Haunting in the Arctic, seriously scary, well written, meticulously researched with proper ghosts.
Another book with proper ghosts is I Will Have Vengeance by Maurizio de Giovanni. Daughter recommended the television series about Ricciardi, Naples detective and has lent us the book. The ghosts he sees and hears are even creepier in print.
In Sara Moss’s Night Waking a woman with two small children, spending a summer on a remote private island, unearths a burial of a newborn baby She is writing a book about the history of child rearing while struggling to parent her own two. Beautifully written with sparks of wry humour like all her novels. The Fascination by Essie Fox is a Victorian romp. nicely entertaining, with an intriguing cast of characters.
I see that Paul Lynch is this year’s well deserved winner of the Booker Prize for Prophet Song, reviewed in my November blog. A brilliant novel but not comfortable reading.
Listening to Audiobooks has been a challenge as I have kept falling asleep, although I realised, listening to the Kingsbridge prequel The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follet, that I had read the book and remembered the plot. I found a second book by Rebecca Netley, whose The Whispering Daughter and I both enjoyed. This one, The Black Feathers, is decidedly Gothic. Shogun by James Clavell is a book I must have read in the 1970s, immersing myself in this popular historical novel while at home having babies. I’m thoroughly enjoying it, with 43 of its 53 hours still to go. Good to listen to now I’m painting again. (see updated Sketchbook page).
Two new series we’ve been enjoying are The Buccaneers (Apple) very loosely based on Edith Wharton’s novel, featuring lots of Scottish scenery pretending to be Cornwall, and Culprits (Disney+) with a group of highly skilled criminals carrying out complex heists. Lots of blood and scenic locations. Boiling Point (BBC i Player ) came to an end. I liked this short series set in a restaurant kitchen, spin off from the feature film.
Shetland (BBC1) with its new lead Ashley Jensen, who I very much liked in Ugly Betty, is just not the same.
PIANO PLAYING
I unearthed my Easy Christmas Piano book this week. It seems no time since I was staggering through Winter Wonderland, Fairytale of New York and, my favourite, Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, last year. My friend A and both my Sisters are singing in choirs this month. I do miss singing Christmas music, something Cannyrob and I did for many years.
WARDROBE REVAMP
Accepting that I am unlikely to lose much weight any time soon, I am doing a major cull of clothes from the last decade. Jumpers which make me look upholstered, trousers that are just too tight. Dresses that cling in unflattering places. I need comfortable roomy layers, soft leggings, bright tights and a few favourite hats and scarves. I have two new coats: Desigual fake fur and Sweaty Betty long parka. It feels good to have space in the wardrobe and not waste time raking through hangers full of half-remembered garments.
KEEPING IN TOUCH
Being disabled definitely makes people notice me in rather a nice way. They tend to smile, say hello, open doors…..Waiting at bus stops is often an opportunity to strike up a conversation which is a mini drama without needing to be part of a whole play.
I discovered the term philoxenia, the desire to connect with strangers.
Some of us have entertained angels unawares. Hebrews 13.2
I have had this desire all my life, chatting to random people as a small child, embarrassing my children by striking up conversations in public places. Now it helps me cope with feeling isolated.
I had some great responses to my Millport story last month. Learning to ride a bike, stranded on the Waverly, cycling round the island, rockets launched from the Crocodile Rock…
Do keep me posted with your reactions and personal stories. I love hearing from you, even if it’s just an emoji. 😄
TIME AFTER TIME 