Being Trusted

 TRUST

I've been a Volunteer Advocacy Worker for about six years now, and have become one of the more senior among the group.  The 'job' is rewarding, frustrating, educational, confusing, demanding, funny, sad, inspiring, gut wrenching, worrying, hilarious and weird, all rolled into one.  Varied too.  I have met some very interesting people, some very baffling people, the odd slightly threatening person.  I have tried to help people deal with problems with housing, benefits, doctors, dentists, lawyers, family, psychiatrists, social workers, the council and many more.  I've learned the difference between post natal depression and post partum psychosis, which is something I never ever anticipated happening!  And I've learned to deal with what's thrown at me, find out where I don't know, rely on others and rely on my own ability to relate to people.It's never dull.

But the one aspect of the work that always amazes me, and, I hope, always will, is how quickly so many vulnerable people are able to trust me with very intimate details of their lives.  In part it's because they have come for help, and that Advocard, as an organisation, strives to maintain a strong reputation for being independent and willing to give what assistance they can through advocacy.  In part it may reflect how desperate many of the people we see are.  And I hoper a part of it is that, with all the practice I've had, I have developed ways of making people feel at ease.  But even taking these things into account it is still incredible that within fifteen or twenty minutes of meeting this total stranger they are able to talk about problems they have going to the toilet, or lacking the motivation to wash for days on end, or if they have recently felt suicidal - all subjects I have to ask about if I'm helping them prepare for a benefits assessment (and don't get me started on how inhumane that bloody system is now...).

Trust.  It's never easy to give it to anyone.  Less so to someone you've met for the first time a few minutes ago.  Not everyone does, and with some it's a long battle to win that precious commodity.  But so many do, and that is, with apologies for the cliche, consistently humbling.  I'm very lucky.

Change would be good - but not for the worse

 THE LEAST WORST OPTION

I would like to see an end to SNP government.  The party has been in power for too long, and is now looking and sounding stale, with too many stories of corruption and incompetence surfacing.  But.  If there was an election tomorrow I'd still be voting for them.  Why?

Two main reasons.  The first is obvious.  If, as I do, you believe in the benefits of Scotland becoming independent from the UK, and the increasing urgency of doing so, then the SNP are still the only really credible electoral show in town.  I might prefer to vote Green, but doing so might just lose a constituency seat to a unionist, so it isn't worth the risk.  They can have my list vote, my local authority vote, but for seats in either parliament there are bigger stakes.  (Of course if we had the much fairer Single Transferable Vote system in place for parliamentary seats, as we do at council level, it would be a different story, making it much easier to vote for exactly who you want.)  Alba have yet to show any real campaigning strength, so they can't be considered yet.

The second reason concerns those bigger stakes.  For more than four decades I have despised the Tories and what they do to ordinary people, and have always voted tactically to try to keep them out.  In the constituencies I lived in down south that meant Lib Dem.  Here we have other options.  But is there a realistic option to the SNP?

No party is perfect, no party has policies with which anyone, even party members, agrees 100%.  So we vote for the best fit for our priorities.  Often that means voting for the least worst option, rather than the best.  And this is what it comes down to.  The SNP might not be the party it once was, but is there a better option?  

I've asked unionists on Twitter (that well know source of rational opinion...) what the credible alternative Scottish Government is.  Answers, if given, tend to be vague, coy.  These are mostly right wingers,    Outside of the right wing bubble, the Tories remain what they've been since Thatcher's time - the most divisive and disliked party in the country.  The branch manager, and the Borders MP who is allegedly Secretary of State for Scotland, are ciphers, devoid of any bite or ideas.  And hamstrung by the failure, nepotism and general malfeasance of their masters.  Labour might have their best national leader in some time (they've been through enough of them in the past few years), but are also hamstrung by their London bosses.  What sort of Labour Party is it than can contemplate expelling the great Ken Loach?  As for the Lib Dems... choosing a vile misogynist who seems to be trying out-evil the Tories seems like a route to oblivion.

The SNP commitment to Indy can reasonably called into doubt, but for now they remain the most likely vehicle.  But even if that major issue were discounted, I can't see who would actually do a better job.  The least worst option remains the only choice.

It's all about the quality

 As we get older our concerns in life change.  And since, clearly, the older we get the nearer we are to our own eventual end, the subject of death, our own death, and our health more widely, becomes an increasingly common preoccupation.  I have no fear of being dead.  I know it will be the same it was before I was born - nothingness.  But the dying bit, and the possible pain and suffering that could entail, well I'm not so keen on those aspects.  So my focus on my own health isn't about prolonging my life for as long as possible, but trying to ensure that for however many years I do have left I'm in good enough condition to enjoy them.  Still as physically and mentally sharp as my body will allow me to be.

Advice on what that entails seems to change with time, but most of the basics are pretty obvious.  For all that a great deal of our future to our unalterable genetic inheritance, and the way we've lived life to date, there's still benefits to be had in eating healthily, and exercising brain and body regularly.  I intend to be as responsible for my own decline as circumstances allow.

In the past much of the emphasis has been on aerobic fitness as one of the best ways to prolong health as we age.  Recent thinking suggests that maintaining decent muscle tone is as, or even more, important in ensuring that getting older doesn't mean gradual incapacity.  So a bit of physical exercise every day, including some weight resistance activity.  Nothing too strenuous, just enough to make sure everything is kept in reasonable working order.  And looking for new ideas, new games, new mental challenges to keep the mind exercised too.    

I intend to keep trying to do what's needed for me to be able to do the things I most want to do - getting out every day, walking a few kilometres each day, getting myself to gigs and plays and films, reading and writing and laughing.  And for as many years as possible.

Six years ago I was diagnosed with gout.  I took the doctor's advice, and sought out information on the internet, and adjusted my diet accordingly.  Which mostly meant drinking at least five pints of water each day, and no alcohol.  Although I now consume a very occasional glass of the latter, my overall consumption must be more than 90% less than it was before the diagnosis, and I continue to take water like I'd just emerged from the Sahara.  I know of other gout sufferers who have chosen to ignore this approach, and still happily down their pints and drams as they always did.  While I can understand reluctance to give up old habits, I never liked the drink so much that I'd want to risk the pain of another gout attack, or, more importantly, the inconvenience it can bring.  Being housebound is not my idea of enjoying life (nor crawling about the flat on all fours, as I did during the worst bout - Barbara thought we'd acquired a dog...).  

Quality, not quantity, is what matters.

Two different countries

 WHO'S CHRIS WHITTY?

Yesterday I returned from my first trip to a different country since January last year.  We were in Manchester for a couple of days, the choice of destination determined by a wish to see the Grayson Perry Art Club exhibition.  That had come out of the two series on Channel 4, of six programmes each, using art to look at various aspects of the pandemic and resultant lockdowns and restrictions.  

For those who didn't see the series, there was different theme each week - Home, Family, Food and others - and visual art works created in response to these.  One would be from Perry himself, another from his wife Philippa, one from a celebrity guest (mostly comedians such as  Joe Lycett and Harry Hill), one from a professional artist (or artistic team in the case of the Singh Twins), and several from members of the public.  The best of the latter would be chosen as exhibits for a planned future exhibition.  This exhibition which we went to see.

It was extremely enjoyable, full of interest, and a reminder that art doesn't need to be perfect, or technically brilliant, to be worthwhile, a rule that applies just as much other art forms.  There was a lot to discuss afterwards, a lot of lessons about how many ways people have coped with the strains of the past eighteen months.  

But there was also, to me, one undercurrent to the show I found slightly irritating.  One image cropped up regularly, in Grayson's own works, and those of the celebrities and public.  The face of Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England.  But the show had placed a strong emphasis on wanting to represent the views and experiences of the British public.  So where was Jason Leitch?  Whitty has been a leading figure of the crisis in his own country, but irrelevant in the other constituent parts of the UK, or indeed Britain.  While I'd noticed this to some degree while watching the programmes, it was much more obvious when seen as one coherent exhibition.

I lived in England for thirty five years.  Much, of course, was the same as it had been back home.  But there were more than enough differences to make me realise I'd come to a different country.  One of those I noticed persistently across the decades.  An irritant at first, I eventually gave up correcting people and accepting that that was the way they were.  This was in the use of Britain/British as synonyms for England/English, and vice versa.  I couldn't say how many times I was told about how well England were doing in the Olympics, or asked if I'd seen the British football team playing a match.  

There was nothing malicious in this.  Nothing arrogant.  It was totally unconscious.  I once corrected my first wife over her misuse of the two terms, and that ended up in a row - she simply couldn't understand why she was wrong, that there was any real difference between England and Britain.  Surely they were the same?  But I have never heard anyone use Scotland/ Scottish in the same way, and I doubt if it happens in Wales either.  We have a much clearer understanding of our own national identities.  Whereas this confusion appears to be endemic to English culture.  And Grayson Perry is no exception.

Of course I write this from the perspective of someone who would like to see Scotland become independent.  Not from any hatred of England or the English - after so long living there most of my friends, and my wife, are English - but because we want to do things differently, and that we are clearly different nations.  Hard line unionists on social media often want to make out there is no difference between the cultures of England and Scotland.  But there are many, and this, for me, is the biggie.  We are Scottish, but also British.  To be English is, for most, to think that being British is the same thing.  Art Club is a sharp reminder that the differences are real.

Now, remind me again - who's Chris Whitty?

That was the, or a, Fringe

 IT'S THE FRINGE JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

Regular readers (??) will be aware of my love for Edinburgh's festivals, particularly the Fringe, and that every August my days became dedicated to comedy and music and drama and street acts and the whole experience of a city filled to overcapacity with artists and punters. We'd usually find our way to about forty or fifty shows, plus spending time watching buskers and the like. Three weeks well lived. 

But not in 2020. Edinburgh felt like a ghost of it's former self.  In the midst of a global pandemic this feltmore of a relief than a disappointment.  But now it's 2021 and the Fringe returned.  Not the Fringe of the past, but a smaller, less intense, more geographically distributed Fringe.  It had changed.  And so had we.

I would have liked to recover my old enthusiasm, but twas not to be.  A year and a half of caution, of keeping a distance, of not mixing with other people, has made me even more antisocial than I was before.  So there was no great mass booking of tickets, not detailed schedule of daily activities.  Instead there was a desire to go to see shows, but also to feel comfortable, to feel safe.  And what that means is very much down to personal experiences and preferences and what feels right for the individual concerned.  I'd go to town to see what shows we had, but wandering about to see what was happening felt too odd, in light of recent times, even if it was a joy not to be given any fliers on my one venture down the High Street!

In the end we saw a curious of mix of events, felt much more comfortable where there was plenty of fresh air, and enjoyed what we did see.  Even if it meant abandoning some tickets already bought, because our one experience of the venue just didn't feel 'right'.  This was reflected in my daft hobby of trying to right reviews for the events I go to see.  I gave up on that after the first two, because I found myself wanting to write about the venue, and the social distancing measures they had in place, as much as I did the actual show!  The subsequent reviews are getting written, but only as a reminder to myself of what we've been to see, and they won't be getting shared with others.

My final tally amounted to seventeen events attended, plus a couple online.  Only eight of those were Fringe shows.  Three of those were indoors, two on the top deck of a multistory car park (yes, really...), one in the open air, one walking the streets, and one online.  There were five in deck chairs, outdoor film screenings from the Film Festival which had forgone it's usual June slot and joined in the August activities.  Three in giant open sided polytunnel like structures as part of the International Festival.  Two under a big plastic gazebo, at the BBC's new location.  And the final one, last night, was a Book Festival event online.  Hardly any of the above were in venues I would normally find myself in during Augusts past.  And of the nineteen only half a dozen were comedy shows, which is very far from the usual ratio.

We had fun.  The EIF gigs were all outstanding (as was their covid-related admin!).  I do hope that 2022 sees the return of something more like the old Fringe experience.  But whether I will be the same person I was remains to be seen.  The pandemic has changed society.  And individuals.

The ultimate pizza

 

GOING GREEN

The past eighteen months have changed the world.  Provided lessons for governments, health services, wider society.  We learned who the really valuable members of society are (hint : it's not bankers and hedge fund managers), who the selfish people are (the weird Fox of the family somehow comes to mind...), and a lot about ourselves.  The world has changed and so have we as individuals.

Don't worry, this isn't going to turn into one of those profound personal epiphanies about how my experience of lockdown has helped me discover some deeply buried truths from my inner being.  None of that bollocks.  For although I do think I have discovered some things about myself, and my relationship, in lockdown times, it's a very different discovery that feels like the most important personal revelation of covid times.

Roast brussel sprouts.  How did I not know about these before?  Much as I've been one of those people who always liked their sprouts, the roasting of these wee tight packed bundles of leaves makes them into something else.  It came about by luck really, when I put a few into a tray of roasting vegetables and they emerged as the star of the show.  Then, having been introduced to this culinary delight, I began to wonder what more elaborate uses they might be put to.

Google turned up sprout and stilton risotto.  Some will turn away at this point, the dry boke their only reaction.  For those willing to continue let me tell you this is wonderful.  You shred half the sprouts and cook them in with the arborio, half roast the others to be added to the mix at the end.  Wonderful, one of the best risottos I've ever made.

But there's one more step to this story.  If stilton and sprouts work so well together in risotto, where else could the combo be successful?  What works well with cheese and veg?  What needs high temperatures to cook at it's best?  Pizza...

And that's my lockdown discovery.  Roast sprouts are delicious in their own right.  Sprout and stilton risotto is to become a Crawford winter staple.  And there is no better pizza than brussels and blue.  Trust me.

Back for some of the old normal

 

BUT... THERE'S GOING TO BE PEOPLE THERE...

Some readers will be aware that, pre covid, going to live entertainments played a big part in my life.  Music and comedy gigs, plays, sports events.  And that Barbara and I have been enthusiastic audience members at the Fringe for a few years now.  Then 2020 came and did it's thing.  My last experience of live music was on the eleventh of March last year.  I won't be able to say that for much longer.  Hopefully.  Maybe.  

There have been sports events with crowds recently.  There have been gatherings of one sort or another in streets and squares.  But there have also been lots of vaccinations, and the covid infection rate, after a surge upwards, appears to be in decline again.  Yet, despite regular trips to the shops, the idea of sitting down in a building with strangers feels ever so slightly weird.  This may be because I have been a fan of social distancing long before it became popular.  Because people.

My calendar tells me there are nine events booked for the rest of this year.  Four of those are carryovers, dates rearranged from one or more postponements last year.  Five I have booked recently.  Four in August, one next month in the Jazz and Blues Festival.  It feels like there should be more, and also that that's too many.  But there are Fringe tickets being made available next week, decisions to be made.  Book now, while there's availability, or wait until we see how we feel after our first gig?  

I already know the answer.  Unable to resist seeing what's on sale, my brain will say that we need to see her, we need to see him, that there are plenty of free days in August to fill.  That this is what we missed last year.

And that gig in less than three weeks from now will confirm I was right.  There will be people.  But there will also be guitar.  It's the music that counts.  Bring on the blues.

The boots are back, the body isn't

 BOOTS BACK

I may not be pestering people for money this year.  Kiltwalk remains hit by the pandemic and the unknowns it continues to bring into our lives.  There was a virtual Kiltwalk at the end of April, much like the one I took part in last September (https://baclitter.blogspot.com/2020/09/i-did-it-honest-post-with-evidential.html), but that was too early in the year for me.  I'd done no serious walking since that trek down the Water of Leith Walkway so I was in no shape to tackle anything beyond going to the shops.

There is still a plan to hold a 'proper' Kiltwalk, with a large crowd of kilties assembled.  That's set for late August.  But in Glasgow only.  At the moment they haven't even opened registration as there's still a high likelihood that it won't be able to take place.  But if it does, and logistics of travelling through in time can work for me, then I'd be tempted to give it a go.  Or perhaps, given that the covid situation is going a bit better at this end of the M8, it might even be switched to Edinburgh.  The final option would be another virtual walk.  Whichever it might be, if any of these variations do end up taking place, I want to be ready for the possibility.  Which means getting the boots on and doing some miles.

I'm late starting out, at least compared to last year,and the end target date is nearer as well, so I need to get on with it.  I began last week with an easy route of less than ten kilometres, which took just over ninety minutes.  A reasonable time, but I was pushing myself.  Too early is it turned out.  The next day I felt not exactly ill, but a bit shaky, a bit achey and a bit slow.  I felt... old.  Which is hardly surprising - I'll be sixty five next week. Today I walked a fourteen kilometre route that I've used as practice a few times in the past coupe of years, so I know what a good time over the distance looks like.  But I took my time today, hoping not to feel quite so old tomorrow.  The end time was over fifteen minutes slower than my best time over the same route last year.  Oh well.

I'll keep on getting the boots out regularly over the coming months.  Even if there's no end purpose it's still an activity I enjoy, and should be doing me good.  But I think I also need to recognise the effects of the ageing process, the general slowing down and steady erosion my physical abilities.  Maybe comparing my efforts with previous times I've set isn't the best approach for a pensioner...

The bushy tailed bayn of my life

WHAT'S GREY, FLUFFY AND  A WEE BUGGER?

Fifteen years.  From a narrow shrub, not even a metre high, to a huge bush that was a good bit taller than me, and several times wider.

Five years.  From cutting to destruction.  Bloody squirrel!

In 1999 I planted a bay tree in the front garden of our old house down south.  In front of the dining room window, at the top of the wee rockery, beside next door's fence.  It grew.  And grew.  And grew.  Without much help from me it has to be said.  It became a supplier of a culinary ingredient, and another one of the bits of greenery that demanded attention from my shears during the summer.  By 2014 it was massive and the trimming becoming more severe with each year simply to stop it blocking the light into the room behind.

Then we were moving, to a flat.  Downsizing, to a new city, a new country.  My old city, my old country, place of my birth.  Reluctant to lose my ready supply of bay leaves, I took five cuttings, and potted them, months ahead of the move.  When the time came to pack up I chose the two fittest looking specimens and shifted them up to Scotland.  Each found it's way into its own huge red pot on the balcony, and both started to grow.  

For five years they provided all the bay leaves I could need, they grew taller and denser and looked healthy and hopeful.  That winter we noticed a grey squirrel visiting the balcony frequently.  Not quite what we'd expected on the fifth floor, but it's probably nothing to a squirrel.  It was something to Zoe, our cat, who was visibly annoyed at the presence on the other side of the glass.  Their stand offs provided a few decent photos.

Our visitor seemed to favour the right hand side of the balcony, and would sometimes be seen emerging from the foliage there, a mess of geraniums, tired herbs and the bay tree.  But it wouldn't be doing any harm there, would it?  Would it?  

I hadn't needed a bay leave for a while.  When I went for one I usually went to the plant on the left, which had grown that bit bigger than the other.  On this day I went to the right, and found the leaf brittle.  On inspection I found that the whole plant, although visually little different, was now a deceased bay tree.  A little more digging, both literally and metaphorically, made it come away easily from the dead roots, and the soil was no longer as it had once been.  It now shared its space with hundreds of wee pellets of old newspaper.  And a few peanut shells.  It had been squirreled.  

I still have one of my bay trees, and will look out for it a bit more.  In time maybe it will give me another cutting so we can have two again.  And I will be on the lookout for flashes of furry grey bushiness.

Squirrels.

Cute, eh?

Little bastards!

Easily impressed? - Childhood memories

 

WHERE THAT PLACE USED TO BE

The combination of prompt from my 365 project, asking me to think about a place from my childhood that is now long gone, and the recent news that the Jenners department store is to close, has dragged me off into a roomful of childhood memories.  Jenners, for readers not from Edinburgh, is, was, a big department store on Princes Street, across from the Scott Monument and just a short walk from Waverley Station.  Jenners was THE department store, Scotland's equivalent of Harrods I suppose, and is the last to fall of the big shops I recall from growing up in the city during the sixties, the places that were major players in the city centre retail sector of the period.

It's no surprise that Jenners will be gone.  Even without the impact that covid has had on shops the demise of the department store was already well under way.  John Lewis may, or may not, carry on once the doors reopen, but it has always been the new kid in town, and plays no part in the memories of the time I'm taking myself back to.  What follows is largely written from my memories of the period, so it's an unreliable memoir, but there were a couple of facts that I checked up on, one of which came as a big surprise.

Little Blyth remembers six of these behemoth stores in and around the Old and New Towns.  But I'll begin with an honourable mention with an out of towner, because it ties in well with the place I'll be concluding with.  There was a big Co-op department store in Leith, on Great Junction Street, where I recall being taken for my school uniform sometimes.  Two technological marvels fascinated my wee boy self.  The x-ray machine I put my feet in to see if shoes fitted correctly.  And, best of all and a performance I could have watched for hours if I hadn't been dragged protestingly away, the pneumatic tube system that whooshed off the money my mother had handed over to the salesperson, and returned with change and receipt.  Like magic to a six year old.

But back to town.  Jenners was always top of the pile, and far too pricey for a young working class family to frequent.  With two annual exceptions.  In the run up to xmas we'd go in, not to buy, but look in wonder at the central floor space where stood an enormous xmas tree, flashily decorated, extending up and up through the surrounding galleries, topping out around the second or third floor.  There was nothing else quite like it (and this was long before the trashy commercialisation of "Edinburgh's Christmas" we've now got and which I'm grateful to covid for sparing us this time round).  The second visit came after the festivities, and the bargain hunting opportunities of the January Sales.  I'm sure I received some late presents via that route...

A block along from Jenners, similarly placed on the eastern corner, was Forsyth's not quite as big, not quite as grand.  I have no real memories of the place, except it was always known as "Big Forsyths", to distinguish it from "Wee Forsyths", a (mens?) clothes shop a few doors away and a totally different company.  Completing the Princes Street trio was Binns, at the West End.  In 1961, like Jenners and Forsyths to the eastern end of the street, it was handily placed for a train station, the old Caley station that fell in the Beeching cuts a few years later.  Binns was mostly famous as a meeting place, specifically under the clock, as a handy landmark where you could arrange to hook up with friends.  "See you at Binns" was a common phrase at the time.  It was Frasers department store until fairly recently (but always 'Binns' to those of a more mature years), and it's lovely to see that the current restoration is bringing back the clock.  It's to be a Johnny Walker Whisky Experience centre I think - whatever that is.

Two of my remembered shops were on The Bridges, the road that leads up to the old town across the top of Waverley.  Patrick Thomson was never know as such, but simply called PTs.  It occupied most (all?) of the eastern side of North Bridge, a huge sprawling place which, again, I recall little about.  My main memory is buying coffee there (my parents favoured Blue Mountain mostly) in the early seventies.  Further up the road, on the South Bridge corner of Chambers Street, was the place which provided the aforementioned surprise.  My memory tells me there was a department store there called J&R Allan, and that it had the best food hall in the city.  Google tells me that Allans closed down in 1953, three years before my birth.  So what am I remembering?  Was it a different shop which was as Frasers was to Binns - everybody still used the old name, no matter what it had become?  Or is there some bit of information I'm missing?  Who cares?

Finally (yes, finally) the department store memory that prompted this whole stream of recollections.  All of the above were very traditional places, old fashioned even then, with formal Victorian and Edwardian facades.  But in 1960, if you walked out of Binns and walked up Lothian Road to Tollcross, you could find the alien spaceship of department stores.  Goldbergs, set well back from the road, looked so so different to anything else in town.  The huge frontal glass area was a beautiful, brutal counterpoint to the stuffy establishment, with dramatic sculptures to each side of that wall of light.  I don't recall what my parents might have bought there, and I imagine that the goods on sale weren't all that different to those in the places mentioned above.  What I do remember was the technological wonder that surprised and delighted an easily impressed kid.  Moving stairs.  Escalators.  It was like entering the future.  And this was before we had Doctor Who!  Simpler times.

The Goldbergs building was demolished in the nineties.  There's a big block of flats there now, with a restaurant at the front where the steps up to the big glass front doors would have been.  But oftimes when I see that block from the Tollcross junction I find I have Goldbergs in my head, and my child self who marvelled at being able to stand on stairs that carried me to the next level.  Escalators don't impress me nowadays, but surprising technology still does, so maybe that wee boy remains within.

Truly Sadly Weepy

 

NEEDS INTRO ABOUT COMING FROM 365!!!  AND THEN EDIT POST

A recent 365 Project prompt told me to watch a movie that makes me cry, and then write about the tear-jerking scene.  A seemingly simple task, but I struggled to think which films would definitely render me lachrymose.  It had to be one that I remembered making me tearful, but hadn't seen so often, or so recently, that the desired result would be lacking.  

It must be a couple of decades since I last watched Truly, Madly, Deeply, so there was an element of risk in my choice.  What if it didn't work on me the way it once had?  What if I'd misremembered how sad it was (and I am only too aware of how unreliable my memory is at times...)?  What if there were no tears?

I needn't have worried.  It remains as powerfully emotional (and emotionally manipulative!) as it felt twenty plus years ago.  The prompt suggests I write about 'the' scene that made me cry.  But there were at least six moments that brought tears into my eyes, from the first few minutes right through to the closing moments.  It as convincing a portrayal of grief, and eventual redemption, as I can recall.

But first a brief synopsis for anyone reading this and unfamiliar with the movie.  A 1990 film, set in contemporary London, starring Juliet Stevenson as Nina and Alan Rickman as Jamie.  Nina is grieving, to the exclusion of all else in life, the death of her partner, Jamie.  Neither her therapist or concerned friends and family can bring her out of her self pitying state.  Jamie suddenly returns, as a ghost, and lives with her, which restores Nina to life.  But there are frustrations to living with a dead person, she meets a good man but is unable to commit, until she can accept it's time to say goodbye and move on.  Classic tear-jerker territory, but raised above the risk of melodrama by brilliant performances and an excellent script.  And it's often as funny as it is sad.

In one of the earliest scenes Nina is about to leave her office, but is held back by boss Sandy (Bill Paterson).  He comments on her behaviour, wants her to come for drinks with the crowd, clearly cares about her a lot.  And she shuffles out of the door, unable to explain, unable to deal with the kindness, finding sadness the easier option.  It was easy to imagine feeling the same way in those circumstances, and empathy is a powerful emotional string puller.

At her therapist Nina is in full on blub mode, tears, snot, crumpled face, angry with everyone and everything and Jamie more that anyone else.  Who could resist the power of that face?  It is where we do not want to be.  She admits to hearing his voice, constantly, telling her to get on with the mundane acts of her life, like locking the back door at night.  A presence both there and not there.  

Then Jamie comes back into her life.  She is playing piano, hears a cello accompaniment and smiles at the memory.  Except that the strings continue when the keys cease to sound.  We see Jamie in the background, and, turning round, so does Nina.  It is a moment of disbelief, of joy at reconnection, of grief at knowing that this cannot be real.  And yet it is, he is solid (albeit constantly cold) yet certainly dead.  And she can wallow in something more joyful at last.

All of these pile one on another in the first thirty minutes, but my other welling up moments come towards the end of the film.  Goodbyes and new beginnings.  The most moving moment of all (and one which has brought the tears out as I recall it) sees Jamie reciting a poem in Spanish, with Nina translating each one into English as he proceeds.  It is an excerpt from La Muerta (The Dead Woman) by the great Chilean, Pablo Neruda, and each successive line becomes harder for Nina to relate as she builds towards another flood of tears, this time in Jamie's (dead) arms.

The final lines of the verse are

"my feet will want to march

to where you are sleeping

but I shall go on living"

- my bottom lip trembled, my own tears joined Juliet's, and it was clear that this moment was pivotal, was the chance for her to finally accept the life she had, leaving the one now lost to her.

My final two moments were less dramatic, less emotionally draining, for the tears were part happiness now.  When Mark (Michael Maloney) persuades her to talk about the barrier she has put up, and shows his understanding of her situation, it feels like a release.  And the closing moments, when Mark comes to collect her from that 'terrible flat' and in the window stands Jamie, sad/happy to see her go, surrounded by his dead mates who all wave the couple off into the night.  

Letting go, accepting loss, returning to real life, are bittersweet moments in life.  My tears were for Nina and Jamie, and Mark, and all the people who have to pass through such moments in their lives - which means all of us.  And for myself, for I am incapable of watching, or reading about, such situations without imagining myself placed in them and wondering how I'd react.  As Nina and Mark and even as Jamie (except I can't play the cello...).  It's a tribute to Stevenson and the late Rickman, and to writer and director Anthony Minghella, that there were times when the emotions felt as real to me as they did to the characters.  Experiencing these moments by proxy flexes our emotional muscles without risk, reminds us what it means to be human.  That's what stories are for.

(Footnote.  I had completely  forgotten the poetry scene, and the strange coincidence it brought forth.  My final choice of weepy movie lay between TMD and Il Postino, in which one of the central characters is a fictionalised version of Neruda.)

Water of Leith Dog Rescue on Ice

 ICE DOG

For today's lockdown exercise I decided to walk down to The Shore and see if there was still much snow and ice around there.  On my way I heard the sirens of the emergency services coming my way and seconds later two fire engines swooshed past, and I hoped it wouldn't be anything too serious.  When I got near The Shore I could see a crowd assembled at the corner and along the bridge, with the fire engines parked by the river.  So I walked round to the opposite  bank to see what the fuss was about.

There was a wee dog scampering about on the thin layer of ice that covered most of the river.  A fireman had lowered a hammock-like device and was throwing bits of food down to try and tempt the agitated looking canine in to be lifted up.  He did get him once, but the dog immediately fell out again, fortunately without breaking the ice.  And after that there was no way he was going to get back in!

The above photo was taken during the almost-rescue, with the creamy coloured dog in the red rescue device.  Above, beside the lamppost, is the concerned owner in grey scarf and blue sweater.  

This wider shot shows the fire engines attending and, most importantly, the Fire Service Water Rescue Unit on the left.  They would be the guys to provide the happy ending to the story.  By this time there was a sizeable audience along the wall of the bridge (out of shot to the right) and on the bank where I was.   We're all a bit desperate for entertainment in lockdown, and this was as good as it gets right now.

I started taking a video when the Water Rescue pairing went into action, not knowing how long it might take or what the outcome would be.  Apologies for the poor quality, as I only had my phone with me, and there was a bit of snow, a bit of sun flare, and wobbly concentration on my part when I was looking directly at the action more than I was my screen.  But it's good enough to give some idea of how events panned out.  Sound up for the spontaneous crowd noise when the deed is done, when the dog is finally grabbed, and the touching handover to relieved pet owner.

You can watch the video on YouTube by clicking here.

Conspicuous Compulsion

 CONSPICUOUS COMPULSION

Addiction is a terrible affliction.  In most cases it'll not just harm the addict themselves, sometimes ending their life prematurely, but can often cause huge problems for the people around them, or even to complete strangers.  Clinical addiction is a disease that needs to be treated.

But when we say there's something we "can't do without" we don't usually refer to the kind of chemical dependency that addiction covers.  We mean things that feel as if they make our lives better in some way, be it exercise or chocolate, and there are times when those feelings become near obsessive, compulsions we can't shake off without a sense of having given up.  Over the past year of lockdowns and a life devoid of much in the way of social interaction I've found that having a few obsessions has been not just benign, but beneficial.  So here's four that have made my pandemic life a little bit better, helping to maintain my physical health, mental health, emotional health, and... whatever.

Firstly, with most of our entertainment now online, it would be easy to slip into full on couch potato mode and allow my fitness to decline.  I, like so many people nowadays, wear a step counter on my wrist, set to a target of eleven thousand steps each day.  I could easily accept that, with all the guidance telling me to stay at home and there not being anywhere to go anyway, I should accept that not hitting that target every day is inevitable.  I was forced to when  we were ill and had to self isolate.  But once I was able to get out again, and my fitness gradually came back, I soon regained the habit of wanting to hit my target.  Every day.  With the good weather we had in Spring and Summer it was no problem to get back into it, albeit less so in recent months.  

But I kept going because it's become an obsession.  Each day adds to the streak, and as that grows so does my determination to extend it to 365 consecutive days.  There are times when it becomes more chore than challenge, when it's cold and wet and there's not even a reason to go to the shop.  But I've kept it going, even if it means the hall carpet gets a battering some days, and that a few days ago I only hit the magic 11k figure about 23.45.  Obsession does that. 

My other must-do daily target is writing 750 words into the fittingly named website 750words.com.  That's something I've now done for over 1100 days in a row.  But with so little in my life to write about  it too was becoming a chore.  So I've upped the stakes.  I found a list of 365 (there's that number again) writing prompts, giving a daily suggestion from which to create a story or poem or description or, well, whatever you feel like writing.  I started on the first of January and already it's become an action I MUST undertake.  Each night I look at the next day's subject and start thinking about it.  Each day I am forced to think creatively, so use bits of my brain that might otherwise lie dormant.  The resulting prose and verse has been, shall we say, of inconsistent quality (OK, a lot of it's shite...), but in this case it really is the taking part that's more important than the winning.  

My emotional life is doing just fine, has perhaps even benefited from so much time at home, as Barbara and I have been reminded that we do quite like each other.  But you can't get everything you need from one person, so it's good I have this wee face in my life.

My daily life needs time with Zoe.  Be it as a playmate, a lapcat or a solid lump on my stomach in bed, Zoetime is another must-have.

Which leaves the whatever.  A bit of sweetness.  Most nights, before I go up and brush my teeth, a spoonful (or so...) of chocolate spread seems to find it's way from jar to mouth.  It's like I'm not involved in the process.   

Compulsion, obsession, Pavlovian habit, call it what you will, but it's what helps keep me fit and happy.  What do you do?

A beautiful mind

 

Until a few years ago, if you'd said the name Hedy Lamarr to me I'd have vaguely recalled a beautiful Hollywood actress of black and white movie days, and a running gag in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.  Then I listened to the opening track of Findlay Napier's excellent album, VIP : Very Interesting Persons.  The title is 'Hedy Lamarr', the melody memorable, the lyrics simple.  

"You know your place, You're just another pretty face."

"Every time the lights shine down, you disappear"

"If only they'd seen beyond that silver screen."

The sleeve notes hint at the person behind the image, saying she invented the process which became Bluetooth and WiFi.  Clearly there was much, much more to Ms Lamarr than my scanty knowledge even hinted at.  So I did a bit of reading, watched a documentary, and felt sad for the frustrations she must have suffered in her life.

Lamarr, originally Hedwig Kiesler from Vienna, was once touted as the most beautiful woman in the world, a big name Hollywood star who never really got the roles her thespian talents deserved.  She achieved a major success as Delilah to Victor Mature's Sampson in 1949, but was mostly typecast as the femme fatale because of her East European accent and astonishing beauty (and her refusal to have sex with the powerful men who dominated the industry).  As the Napier lyric says, "too beautiful".

Bored with the limited demands acting made on her, she frequently turned to inventing.  Early in World War 2 she and composer George Antheil came up with a radio guidance technology for naval torpedoes that would be impossible for the enemy to jam.  But it wasn't adopted, partly because the  insular military was guilty of not-invented-here syndrome, partly because a (mere) woman was involved in it's origins.   Their invention would eventually be adopted in the fifties, and became the basis for the aforementioned protocols we all use now in our everyday lives.  She and George were finally, posthumously, inducted into the national Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

There is so much more to the remarkable Lamarr's life, but those frustrations I mentioned must have a huge influence on the way she saw the world.  Would such a major talent have had greater recognition in today's world?  Hollywood is still misogynistic at times, as the #MeToo revelations have shown, but has still seen huge improvements since the forties and fifties where the stars were so much more closely controlled by the studios.  It isn't hard to imagine Lamarr becoming a much bigger name, and a director, in the twenty first century.  And that the intellectual resources and access to collaborators the internet can provide would have seen her practical imagination and inventiveness able to thrive.  A modern Hedy could find it easier to overcome those frustrations.

Lamarr is largely remembered as a beautiful face, a beautiful body, a beautiful woman.  Findlay and others are doing their bit to have her best known for having a beautiful mind.

Hope in the thaw

 

OLD GAMMON OR NEW EGGS?

The crows nest, silhouetted against the pale blue above the horizon, still sits firmly perched amid the uppermost branches of the tree before me, a few shrivelled brown leaves clinging to a pretence of a life, no buds yet apparent.  The nest is silent testimony to the industry and construction skills of the birds who built it, and who return year after year to renew their family.  Their time will come.

If I look down I see more green than white now.  There was a moderate snowfall a couple of days ago, covering the graveyard in brightness, setting the gravestones into sharp relief, making them more real and a stronger reminder of the life events behind those monuments to death.  It rained yesterday, the resultant slush then turned into a treacherous low-coefficient topography.  Today only sunshine which, despite the chilled air, steadily removes the watery blanket, only a few stubborn patches of shade putting up a fight.  It's a beautiful day, a day to walk and breathe and enjoy.

It's the First of January.  An arbitrary human marker in the natural flow of the seasons.  A marker of plans and promises, a time of recounting and foretelling.  But who dares make predictions for 2021 after the indecipherable potage that was 2020?  There are few certainties, but that does not mean that we are without hope.  Last night marked the end of one dark saga, our ties to the EU finally snapped after years of lies and bigotry and uncertainty.  The full implications of the Gammon Curtain will be made plain in the coming months.  

But the leaves will return to the naked branches I look out on, the green will flourish and the cemetery adopt it's summer character for yet another cycle of planetary movement.  Diamonds might be forever, but winter, and the gammonist regime, are not.  This was not a direction Scotland chose, but, like the crows, we can rebuild our nest and give birth to something new. 

 The crows will be with us again, there will be eggs, and new life and hungry mouths poking skywards.  They do not need other birds to tell them what to do.