I hate the small yappy dog next door.

 

I hate the small yappy dog next door.

Except it isn’t next door. It’s in my garden.

I bang on the bathroom window.

The small yappy dog looks up at me. It can see I’m furious. It can see the steam coming out of my ears. It’s been barking incessantly at the birds in the tree, and driving me mad, but now it knows it’s being watched.

So what does it do?

Does it beat a hasty retreat?

Does it panic and jump back over the wall.

Heck no.

Instead it simply cocks its leg and wees all over my most prized Aquileia, the pale cream one, before trotting off calmly back home.

I hate that dog.

A little later I have to buy fish food. The fish are starving.

While I was away the house sitters who were responsible for feeding the fish left the fish food containeron the bench. Of course within the hour the ‘orrible small yappy dog had mangled the box, worrying it until its contents spilt and then ate the lot.

Oh, how I hate that small yappy dog.

I hope it grows fins!

An Update

 

I want an end to “Updates”.

There I am happy in my little computer bubble, oblivious of the magic that makes it all work, happily using just the few bits that I like and understand.

I am perfectly content.

I am happy.

There was a song I’d come across. I just wanted to know when it was written and if the version I’d heard was the original version.

The title was “Let’s Go Dancing” and the band, Drivin’ N’ Cryin’.

I got nowhere on the Internet. Then I thought I’d go and have a look at the iTunes music store and see if I could find the same track and the year it was written.

(I have recently played music on my iTunes player on my PC, but I’ve not had cause to buy new any music for ages since the Internet Radio Station Pandora closed its doors to the UK.)

I clicked on the iStore link to be told I needed a new update to access the iTunes iStore.

I clicked on the link.

Again and again.

I went to the support pages which take an age to update and then show videos on how to download iTunes for the first time… but I didn’t want to do that. I’ve been directed here to get an update and have been left in a sort of no man’s land which does not explain anything about updates.

I try again.

I shut down my computer and restart.

Minutes pass. I still can’t access the iTunes iStore.

I begin again.

Something finally begins to download. I blindly agree to everything, and a status bar tells me its status. It’s looking hopeful.

Then it tells me something is now wrong with QuickTime. The status bar now tells me its  unravelling all that it has just done. And now I’m panicking. Will all my precious music be lost? Already my iTunes short cut icon has vanished.

Terrified, I wait twenty minutes while the install tells me its removing even more files.

Then the computer restarts.

My iTunes short cut icon is still not there. I manage to get iTunes to load up but it looks all wrong. I spend an age amending the view back to the way it was. I then have to send off again for the album art work. Apparently, iTunes can’t find the artwork for 8 tracks. A report has been sent, it says. This makes me feel anxious, even though these are tracks that I have uploaded from discs that I own; but I now feel that iBrother is looking over my iShoulder.

Then I try the iStore. I do get in but the search facility pings and will not allow me to type in my search.

So I close iTunes and start again.

I do eventually find the song, but no date is listed.

So I’ve just spent two hours on this wild goose chase and have wrecked so much to end up with not so much as a feather. All because someone somewhere decided that something somewhere had to be ‘updated’.

The next time I’m asked ever to update anything the answer will be, “No, no no!”

So dear techie type can we please, please have ten years off from updates?

Can all you bright young things who think of these things put all iIdeas on iHold?

Hang on, let me update that….

…can all updates be put on hold? PLEASE!

Thanks!

 

 

Drivin' & Cryin' -- Let's go dancing

Well, the hobo's watch stopped at five o'clock, I fear I'll never find him
Oh Dear John, where are you? I know you're out there somewhere
Well I've got a hurricane in my pocket, but no one will believe me
They poured a bucket of tar on top of a flower, somehow I knew they'd try it
To find it, and defy it, and to buy it
Oh, let's go dancing
Ooh, Let's go dancing
Said the firefly to the hurricane
Said the pouring rain to the open plain
How many times?
Oh, I stopped a freight train with a grain of sand, can you hear it crashing?
I split a mountain in two with a flake of snow, still they won't believe me
Well the tales were tall the stories were old, yet some reason I believed them
I said what do you know about revolution? When all I's taught is patience
And waiting, and making a statement
Oh, let's go dancing
Ooh, Let's go dancing
Said the firefly to the hurricane
Said the falling rain to the open plain
How many times?
Oh, let's go dancing
Ooh, Let's go dancing
Ooh, Let's go dancing
Ooh, Let's go dancing
How many times?

 

.

Dangerous Game

 

So I am on tortoise duty.

And the tortoise knowing his owner is away is patrolling his patch like a Rottweiler.

He spotted me at the bottom of his garden trying to cut down the nettles, the over tall docks and the lonicera nitida… the latter being a knitted and knotted bush which has outgrown both its welcome and space.

The tortoise wasn’t at all happy upon seeing me trespassing at the bottom of his garden.

He charged.

There is nothing quite like a charging tortoise.

Hurriedly I slashed at the nettles.

The tortoise stretched its long scaly neck into the wind.

I then cut down the docks, as the tortoise lifted one terrifyingly clawed foot.

Every time I glanced at him he froze. It was as if we were playing a game of ‘What’s the Time Mr Wolf”, though he seemed confused as to who exactly was playing the part of the wolf.

Then as tortoise revved himself up into his heart stopping top speed, I sawed through the nitida’s complicated cathedral columns.

The tortoise was closing the gap.

I wouldn’t have long to complete this task if the steely look in his eye was anything to go by.

Frantically, I hacked and sawed dragging the tangled pieces to a heap in readiness for the bonfire.

It took an age. And it was all the more terrifying as the tortoise was in such a defensive aggressive mode.

I nearly didn’t make it. The tortoise really had travelled at least an inch in the hour while I was there.

Phew! Lucky escape!

 

.

The Taxi Driver

 

I was driving back through town.

The taxi behind me was obviously in a hurry. He was driving far too close.

I didn’t increase my speed, as the lights ahead were red. As I slowly approached them they turned to green, and I went sailing on by at the same steady slow speed.

This infuriated the taxi driver in his black cab jammed up behind me. He flashed his lights aggressively, but there was no where for me to go except forwards.

There were two lanes of one-way traffic on this particular stretch of road and also cars parked to my left so I couldn’t pull over and let him go by. He flashed his lights again. He wanted me to speed up, but I’d already noticed that the lights ahead of me were at red and that the traffic was banking up behind them.

As I slowly approached the stationary cars the lights turned to green and I went sailing on. As I rounded the corner I realised that the taxi was almost in my back seat, but again I didn’t increase my speed, for the next set of lights ahead were at also at red, and the cars that had raced ahead had already juddered to a halt.

I simply chugged along at a slow steady speed.

No doubt I was being called every name under the sun in the taxi. Ignoring it, I steadily motored on and as I approached the lights turned to green allowing me to gamely chug on further without stopping.

This was too much for the taxi driver. He overtook aggressively his engine racing leaving me in the wake of his exhaust fumes and curses.

Ahead of us both the traffic had already ground to a halt at the next set of traffic lights. The taxi driver screeched to a halt in a traffic lane which would allow him to turn right.

I simply chugged along and entered the left hand lane just as the light for this lane turned green.

There was undiluted delight in sailing straight past the taxi with its irate driver and then continuing at the same steady speed. I didn’t bother to glance in his direction.

For all his bluster and impatience the taxi driver was in the exact same place he would have been in had he simply relaxed and just gone along with the flow.

Still it’s something I’ll have to remember the next time I find myself in a hurry and find myself behind a slow moving vehicle.

Maybe, just maybe, they might know the timing of the traffic lights.

(Oh, and I wasn’t really going all that slow!)

Point for Discussion

 

It’s when travelling that you understand how ignorant you are.

I felt, for example, so foolish in Poland for not knowing their language.

I struggled to say thank you, and I still have no idea how to say “Please”.

Then there was all the history of Krakow of which I was completely oblivious.

Being in Krakow was like being in a parallel world. Familiar and weirdly unfamiliar at the same time.

I found the lack of language ability on my part to be such a barrier.

One of the guests smiled at me as we waited outside the church. Later this same person stood for a photograph together with the bride and groom. I was also asked to stand with them. This was a great honour as in Polish weddings family/guest photos are not taken; as usually, the bride and groom are photographed in scenic places alone.

In Krakow I had been passed by several brides and grooms on route with their photographer walking alone to various scenic spots for a dramatic photo opportunity: all a bit staged and contrived. The tram terminal seemed to be a particular favourite such venue with one of the Krakow photographers.

On the road to Żywiec we passed another already married couple being photographed on a dam wall.

However, as the wedding I was attending was aiming to combine both Polish and English traditions the groom had prevailed upon his photographer to take a few shots of family and guests.

The groom had already told me that he was determined to get a photograph of me. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. Now I am not at all photogenic, being 99% all teeth and 1% cock-eyed, and then to ruin most photos with my gargoyle presence, so I was surprised to be asked to join this small group.

“It’s because we don’t have a photograph of you,” the groom explained. “And also you are my godmother and this is Maria the bride’s godmother.”

Maria smiled at me following this introducing, and exclaimed over the similarity of our roles. And so we then posed for the photographer, who did not look at all happy with the figure standing next to the groom and who looked less than pleased that I wasn’t a tram or a vast expanse of dammed water.

Much later during the reception I went to sit with Maria. I wanted to just chat with her. I knew she didn’t understand English, and that didn’t matter to me. I wanted to just say something, anything. I wasn’t at all interested in being understood. It wasn’t important. I just wanted to use gesture and smiles and to chat. I was hoping that she would reply in Polish and that we could then companionably chatter to each other sitting side by side saying whatever came into out heads and not being understood at all.

Unluckily my presence flummoxed her. She was appalled by me suddenly sitting by her side and yabbering away in an incomprehensible language. She felt embarrassed that she couldn’t understand me. In alarm she filled up a glass with vodka, then raised her glass in a toast. She looked as if she’d be happiest after the toast was drunk if she could climb into the nearest hole to get away from this bizarre English woman that had suddenly attached herself to her side.

Polish weddings don’t end until the wee hours. And at five in the morning Maria finally got up to leave together with the rest of her group. She shook hands with all those who had by now also joined this table.

What was so special for me was the warm hug she gave me as we said our goodbyes. It was as if we were kindred spirits.

Maria was a far better godmother to the bride than I had ever been to the groom, for the couple had married in a Catholic church, and the groom had converted to Catholicism in order to do so.

However, the groom’s parents were not at all displeased by the outcome; for they had chosen me to be their son’s godmother even though they had known I was an atheist.

Perhaps atheists make the best godparents after all… discuss!

 

.

Not Quite By the Pen

 

A novelist would take advantage of a wedding to place an unattached man with an unattached woman of a similar age and interests.

There was one such chap who was a guest at the Polish wedding, and for my sins I was the unattached woman of similar age and interests.

Prior to the coach trip from Krakow to the village where the wedding was to be held I had not realised that this chap was unattached, and had chatted to him in the hotel reception area thinking him to be one of the husbands in the extended family.

This chap though had been under no such similar delusion. He had worked out that I was travelling solo.

Before too long as if he was a squiggle of ink from a romantic novelist’s pen I discovered him pooling by my side.

Fiction is so unbelievable. No one would credit a story in a book where a woman travelled over 900 miles to the east and then met someone who lived only a few miles away from her home back home, but this was indeed the facts of the case.

As all heroes should The Chap quickly found all sorts of things we had in common, and said kind things about my home town.

However, as we boarded the coach for the onward journey  The Chap shielded me protectively with his hands. The others sat with their partners, and I suddenly realised that The Chap was now staking a claim upon me. This was done in such a proprietarily way that I felt suddenly very uneasy. The novelist’s pen was slipping for this act of chivalry being more like staking ownership; and I did not like for one second being made to feel that I was now someone else’s possession. Thankfully, my friend abandoned her husband to sit by my side. she was unaware of the novelist’s penmanship she had chosen to sit next to me so that I could entertain her and prevent her from feeling  travel sick.

Such are my unsung uses!

When I finally stepped off the bus I sensed The Chap expected me to walk by his side. This was unnerving as I’m so used to having the freedom to wander hither and thither as I so choose and I’m not used at all to being so corralled to such an orbit.

Later at the reception I discovered to my dismay that The Chap had been seated directly opposite me and I so wished that I could exchange his card with someone else’s, but even though the placing of the name cards was my responsibility i did not dare change the seating plan.

In a romantic novel the champagne and wine would have been followed by dancing and in the next chapter that is exactly what happened. He dragged me off to dance.

Neither he nor the novelist knew that I had not danced for many, many years and that when I have danced it had always been alone.

Still politeness meant that when I was asked to dance I acceded with good grace and a smile and allowed him to take me to the floor. I’m unused to being held but gamely I held his hands as I listened to the rhythm of the band in order to catch the beat.

“Okay, you lead then!” he sneered, after I took a few steps.

Shocked, I apologised and tried to amend my forward ways; unluckily the dance was a slow one. I found I did not want to look at him at all and averted my face.

This would not have happened in a romantic novel. The music would have been perfect and the pair would not have been able to help gazing into each other’s eyes.

Dispirited, I returned to the table.

When next he tried to grab my hand and attempted to drag me off for a second dance, I politely declined.

What he didn’t know was that I was suffering from oedema. My feet had swollen up like balloons following the air flight and a multitude of coach journeys. No novelist would have given her heroine this condition. This poor Chap was not to know that oedema combined with the too tight dressy shoes had made the last dance absolute agony.

Unhappily, The Chap did not give me any chance to explain this predicament; instead he went storming off in a huff.

I had spent much of that and every morning  with my legs up in the air, in an imitation of  a dying fly, hoping that gravity would sort out the problem. So after The Chap had left I decided to return to my hotel room in order to change my shoes to some that were far more sensible and comfortable.

I had been told that there was going to be quite some time between the various courses, so I cast off the painful shoes, changed out of my posh dress, put on my pyjamas and once again imitated a dying fly.

A little while later there was a knock on the door. A novelist would have had The Chap tapping gently on the door and then the romance would have escalated into something really rather special. That is if the heroine had actually liked The Chap.

When I opened the door to my surprise it was the groom’s father who told me that the next course had been served and that my vegetarian dish was on the table awaiting me and going cold.

Embarrassed at being caught in my pyjamas I redressed and rushing back downstairs, wearing the  flat sensible shoes, rejoined the diners.

The Chap was no longer sitting opposite me. It seemed that I had been gone for a quite some time for everyone had already finished this course and were chatting merrily.

The Chap was now sat at the far end of the table chatting to another woman, and I breathed a sigh of relief, already the tidy seating formations were breaking up.

Meanwhile, someone else borrowed The Chap’s empty chair, When The Chap finally did return to his original place he complained bitterly and loudly to all nearby that I had “… given away his chair!”

And then realised that the romantic novelist had had enough of me and was now intent upon blackening my character instead.

The Chap’s mood was not improved as the meals progressed. He accidently dropped salad into his glass of water. Then whilst reaching over the table for more meat caught his glass of water with his sleeve and knocked it over.

In a story, the hero would have laughed, would have been jolly about the accident, ruefully looking over his flooded half of the table and  smiling when the heroine helpfully offered him her serviette.

Instead The Chap was mortified by this accident. He refused my serviette, and instead testily demanded more serviettes from the waitress. This was done in the form of an entertaining mime as she didn’t speak any English and he didn’t speak any Polish.

Eventually, he had mopped his half of the table and more dishes of food and appeared, been eaten and then been taken away.

“Why are you smiling?” The Chap demanded crossly.

I hadn’t been aware that I had been smiling and realised that if I was then it was because I was happy for the newlyweds. However, from the tone of The Chap’s voice he’d obviously decided that my stray smile was because of his recent clumsiness. He had taken offense and was obviously affronted.

So alack and alas.

In a novel it would have worked. The Chap would have been a delight to talk to. He would have noticed my painful dancing shoes and insisted that I should wear his size twelve shoes instead.

Nay, he would have carried me up into the air to save my feet from even touching the ground.

He would have laughed at the spilled water and told me other tales about water he’d spilt. He would have been a fount of knowledge about ancient history and would have spoken in awe about the music from the like of Espers and the Howie Day. In short he would have been great fun to be with.

But alas, it was not to be.

But wasn’t it weird that he should have taken such umbrage with me when later another hugged me as if I was a long lost sister!

 

 

Crushed in the arms...
Crushed in the arms…
I was there

And I…

Crushed in the arms...
Crushed in the arms…

I must say…

I was there

And I

I must say

Crushed in the arms...
Crushed in the arms…

I must say

I was there

And I…

I must say

Crushed in the arms...
Crushed in the arms…

I must say…

I was there

And I must say…

Never could fall in love.
The feeling is such a thrill
Oh.. why don't you anger me,

Anger me, or will.
Oh... Why don't you anger me?

(crushed in the arms..)
Now I could never fall in love.

I must say

And feeling such a thirst there
Strangle me.

Strangle me

You want my strength.

Strangle me

I’ve a feeling you want my strength.

You live some time

You live some

You listen

You live some time

You live some

You listen

You leave some body

Yeah

You leave some

You listen

You leave some body

Yeah

You leave some

You listen

You leave some body

Yeah

You leave some

You listen

You leave some body

Yeah

You leave some

You listen

You leave some

Sleepwalking Sheep

 

I don’t like admitting that I’m a vegetarian.

It’s lovely when you can order something from a menu at the same time as everyone else and when nobody realised that the dish you’ve ordered is meat/chicken/fish free. You can enjoy the evening and discuss so many different things.

But once your companions know you are a vegetarian then the inevitable onslaught is merciless.

The hapless vegetarian is subjected to dissertation as to why their companions could never give up meat. How they tried once, or how succulent different meat dishes are.

After a while, they look at the vegetarian’s blanched face and then sometimes ask outright, “Why are you a vegetarian?”

My reply of “I don’t want to kill animals,” is then usually met with a discourse regarding the different methods of slaughtering animals. No detail is spared.

After this, by the time the food arrives I have very little appetite and feel even more self-conscious about my food.

I’d hoped that by ordering one meal in advance, on my recent trip to Poland that I would avoid this situation. (See the menu listed in an earlier blog.)

However, in this restaurant, to my horror, I discovered that no one else had ordered a starter.

Then as the dishes were laid before me I realised that no one else had order a dessert either.

For set before me on the table was a bowl of soup I had ordered, next to the Greek salad, the potatoes with a pipe and the ice-cream pancakes. (The latter in the superheated atmosphere were already melting.)

This arrangement, as good as a neon sign, instantly signalled to the others, who were tucking into great troughs of food, that I was eating something slightly different to the rest of them. That I was a vegetarian!

Mortified, I managed to grab an opportunity to leave earlier than the rest and was spared the more pointed comments.

I was not so fortunate some few days later.

Polish weddings go on into the early hours. We had been invited to the bride and groom’s home for a meal the following day. This meal was goulash cooked by the bride’s mother who had also had very little sleep.

Dishes of steaming goulash were past down the table.

And inevitably a dish was set before me.

Then someone in a sleep exhausted panic told our hosts that I was a vegetarian. Mortified that this now meant the exhausted cook was now put into a quandary as to what on earth she could possibly serve this rather picky guest I piped up hurriedly, “Tell her not to worry. I’ll eat this.”

I did.

It took an awful lot of courage.

All those around me were ladling spoonfuls of soup into their mouths and eyeing my stillness as I readied the spoon and steadied my nerve.

Not a word was said as I emptied the bowl. I was one of them.

“It was delicious,” they declared , but I was unable to echo this sentiment.

For me, it was the first beef I’d tasted for over forty years. I hadn’t forgotten the taste. It was familiar but perfectly horrid. Not because of sentiment but simply because of its taste.

For me it tasted of what it was: dead animal. It tasted like cardboard, and I felt thoroughly unclean having eaten it, and still do.

It made me realise what a collective delusion meat eaters maintain when they tuck into their cuts of meat and proclaim how tasty they are. Of how such flesh does not compare in terms of deliciousness with say a freshly picked strawberry or a juicy apple. Of how the dull brown-grey colour of meat is a far better advertisement of its taste than anything else. Of how farmers have portrayed meat as being the food for virulent strong men and salads more suitable for sissies. And of how so many are fooled, go along with this delusion and try to brainwash others into this meat eating cult.

A week or so later I read how words in The Bible had to be altered in order to placate Constantine the Great who was about to convert to Christianity. Constantine like his meat and so omissions and changes were made to the Biblical text to accommodate his preferences. It is likely that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” had been interpreted by the early Christians to mean “Thou shalt not kill humans or animals” rather like Buddhism’s ideal. The early Christians were therefore likely to have been vegetarians, but had then had to forgo this ideal in order to secure Constantine to their ranks. And so Biblical accommodations were made, which later generations would regard as being set in stone the meat marketing board was the resultant winner. All that is left to do then is a little brain washing and bullying and the meat eating cult rules supreme.

For me the teasing continued at every meal until when asked what I was eating as I lifted a leaf of lettuce to my lips I replied it was mammoth steaks in dipped in lamb sauce. An answer that placated my more determined tormentor or perhaps he noticed the whites of my eyes.

Vegetarians live eight years longer than meat eaters… I told them.

The amount of land it takes to feed one meat eater could be better used to feed twenty vegetarians… I told them.

But their ears were closed and their eyes were drawn to the meaty chef’s specials twice as expensive as my humble dishes.

(~Sigh) I do however wish I had not eaten the goulash though eating it gave me the certain understanding that meat eaters are sheep.

A Sense of Place

 

So there I am swimming under a starless sky with the lights of Kraków silhouetted against the dusky evening blue sky. The pool is on the top floor of the hotel. Below me weaves the darker Vistula River lit up by floating river boats restaurants that are moored against the northern bank.

Then a real treat, for me, a Jacuzzi!

So I sit experimenting with the buttons that control the pummelling warm bubbles.

Then, oh my goodness, a sauna!

I try it out but don’t stay in too long; the smell of hot pine is delicious.

I’m not used to such luxury.

But now I am utterly ashamed of this indulgence. Yesterday I realised just where my hotel was situated.

I had walked from the hotel into Kraków thinking that the Jewish section of the city had been the part that had been walled up and had formed the ghetto. I had two guide books and had even visited Schindler’s Factory and I had still left Poland with this misconception.

Yesterday I realised that the Jewish Ghetto had been created south of the river close to Schindler’s factory and that the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp had been situated south of the ghetto.

To my horror and dismay I then realised that the hotel where I had been staying, and had spent a few minutes enjoying the luxury of the pool, Jacuzzi and sauna, had been built right on the northern edge of the Jewish ghetto.

I now feel utterly sickened to discover that I had been luxuriating in a place where others had once suffered appallingly.

No wonder I had the place all to myself!