Week 8 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
Harry the Cat having some tanning therapy today under my sunlamp. Yes, of course he was in the way – definition of cat that is! But at 13 and having had the medical problems he has over the last few months I reckon he’s entitled to some R&R. 🙂
Nice one Klaus!
Confusing graffiti on Deutsche Bahn
Graffiti artists in Germany have painted part of a carriage side so that one entrance doorway looks like a wide window and the adjacent wide window looks just like a pair of plug doors! The painting is realistic enough to confuse passengers.
[Railway Magazine; February 2011]
Yesterday we collected Harry the Cat from the vet, where he’s been since a week before Christmas. It is all a very long and boring story which has ended up with him having one of his thyroid glands removed (not uncommon in older cats). But if only it had been that simple.
When we collected him from the vet the first thing we did was drive him an hour up the M1, in thick fog, to a veterinary consultant (the equivalent of your local BUPA hospital) north of Luton as neither we nor our vets were totally happy that the thyroid was the whole of the story.
We spent two hours at the “hospital”, including an hour with the consultant vet during which we were examined as to Harry’s history and he had a physical exam. The upshot of this was that the consultant expects (and hopes) that all the symptoms we’ve been seeing over the last few months are all due to his over-active thyroid, and then the aftermath of the operation. We left having been told “See how he goes for a couple of weeks and if he isn’t OK bring him back”.
So we paid yet another hefty vet bill (praise [insert your choice of deity] for pet insurance) and drove him an hour and a half back down the M1, still in thick fog, to home. Harry slept most of the way home in his basket. By the time we got home for a late lunch we’d all had more than enough for one day.
He seems fairly bright-eyed and bushy tailed although he is still clearly still adjusting to all the displacement. When we got home he was straight out of his basket and head down in Sally’s breakfast bowl. Yep, that’s our Harry! And afterwards he slept under my desk lamp during the afternoon, as can been seen.
He’s still adjusting today, still sleeping quite a bit, and wants to spend time near us – although still not quite trusting that we aren’t going to whisk him off somewhere else nasty for a holiday.
So far, so good. Here’s hoping it stays that way and the consultant is right.It is good to have him back again!
It is reported that the following edition of the Book of Genesis was discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
And Adam said, “Lord, when I was in the garden, you walked with me every day. Now I do not see you any more. I am lonesome here and it is difficult for me to remember how much you love me.” And God said, “I will create a companion for you that will be with you forever and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will know I love you, even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish and childish and unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourself.”
And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased.
And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and he wagged his tail. And Adam said, “But Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and all the good names are taken and I cannot think of a name for this new animal.”
And God said, “Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG.”
And Dog lived with Adam and was a companion to him and loved him. And Adam was comforted. And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged his tail.
After a while, it came to pass that Adam’s guardian angel came to the Lord and said, “Lord, Adam has become filled with pride. He struts and preens like a peacock and he believes he is worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught him that he is loved, but no one has taught him humility.”
And the Lord said, “I will create for him a companion who will be with him forever and who will see him as he is. The companion will remind him of his limitations, so he will know that he is not worthy of adoration.”
And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam. And Cat would not obey Adam.
And when Adam gazed into Cat’s eyes, he was reminded that he was not the supreme being.
And Adam learned humility. And God was pleased. And Adam was greatly improved.
And Cat did not care one way or the other.
This week’s selection …
Enlightened One by martisimas on Flickr
Enlightened One
My staff pays the mortgage,
but the house is all mine …
For the world is my oyster
… but tuna’s just fine.
[Cool Hand Luke]
Any photographer who says he isn’t a voyeur is either stupid or a liar.
[Helmut Newton]What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.
[unknown]Love is space and time measured by the heart.
[Marcel Proust]
Having last week quoted the opening couple of lines from Roger McGough’s poem Here I Am it seems opportune to post the whole poem as it isn’t very long.
Here I AmHere I am
getting on for seventy
and never having gone to work in ladies’ underwearNever run naked at night in the rain
Made love to a girl I’d just met on a planeAt that awkward age now between birth and death
I think of all the outrages unperpetrated
opportunities missedThe dragons unchased
The maidens unkissed
The wines still untasted
The oceans uncrossed
The fantasies wasted
The mad urges lostHere I am
as old as Methuselah
was when he was my age
and never having stepped outside for a fightCrossed on red, pissed on rosé (or white)
Pretty dull for a poet, I suppose, eh? Quite.
Now OK, one knows that here will likely be a degree of poetic licence and tongue in cheek, but it is interesting what one even might consider it important that one hasn’t done (or would have liked to have done) in a lifetime.
So what would be on my list of things I’ve never done, and feel I want to have done? Hmmm … well … OK …
Well there’s still time to tick off some of those; better get going!
You can also check out my list of 111 Bucket List Things To Do.
Yay! I’m one of the lucky recipients of a postcard from The Snailr Project, brainchild of Anna over at little.red.boat. The card arrived this morning having taken almost a month to get here from somewhere in Texas.
Anna’s idea was that as she was doing a long (like 2 week) circular train trip round the US she would send random postcards to random volunteers to build up a sort of travelogue – except any one person got only one snapshot. In Anna’s words:
One journey of almost 7000 miles, six new cities, eight trains, fifteen days, and every vignette, observation and fractured bitty-bit of the travelogue broken up and sent as status messages the old way. By postcard. To a bunch of random people who asked for one. Because travelling slowly is nice. And so is leaving a trail to see where we have been.
Anna used a standard postcard, so she could prepare them in advance and not rely on local supplies. She then customised each card with description, drawing, or whatever along the way and posted them whenever a mailbox hove into sight.
He’s the card Anna sent me from somewhere in Texas, just after they had been involved in a train crash on Friday 10 September!
The caption to the map (which shows Anna’s route in red and the location with a * and snail logo) says
the snailr project isn’t injured. At all. Not even for insurance.
And the main text reads:
After the train had juddered to a sudden halt, and we pulled to a stop with one
sidehalf of a big, silver, grain truck (the front half) on one side of the train, the back half on the other, the rush around to find out who, if anyone, was injured, began. What a dreadful sentence. Sorry. Basically, we were ordered back to our seats and eight sets of people – first Amtrak staff, then paramedics, fire fighters, policemen, walked through the train asking if everyone was OK. They said they were. But half an hour later when people started talking to each other about later claims, all manner of injuries started appearing.
You can find Anna’s pictures from the trip with some commentary at snailrproject.com and also on Flickr.
I’m looking forward to the book of the postcards of the journey!
It’s an ill wind … at least today’s tube strike in London means Noreen is at home (albeit working) on her birthday. Mind, she is currently out taking Harry the Cat the the V E T again. And it’s wet here which is unusual for Noreen’s birthday.
On the subject of the tube strike I just have to repost this from the BBC News website. I love the Liverpool poets, especially Roger McGough.
Poet Roger McGough has written two poems in response to Sunday and Monday’s London Tube strike to mark National Poetry Day.
Millions face disruption during the 24-hour strike, which is in protest at plans to cut ticket office staffing.
The theme for Thursday’s poetry day is home, and McGough suggests his lines may help commuters see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The Liverpudlian poet presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please.
He was also a member of The Scaffold, which topped the charts in 1968 with Lily the Pink, and was an uncredited writer of some of the humorous dialogue on the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine film.
Along with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, McGough was one of the Mersey Poets and they published two best-selling volumes of verse during the 60s and 70s, having started out giving readings in Liverpool’s clubs and cafes.
Here are his two poems:
A Striking Soliloquy
tu be
or not
tu be
Tube strike Haiku
trains that are side-lined
idling in rusty sidings
fear the knacker’s yard
* * *
tunnels empty now
can see the light at both ends
birds risk a short cut
* * *
rails sleeping, dream of
a parallel universe
a new perspective
* * *
platforms yawn and stretch
enjoying the holiday
mice minding the gap
I must look at the Liverpool poets again; haven’t read them for ages. They’re brilliant!
Another images from our recent visit to Rye.
This is a detail from the garden at Prospect Cottage, the late Derek Jarman‘s home at Dungeness. The stone circle is probably just under 3 feet across and is built on the natural gravel surface.
More photos of our trip to Rye on my Flickr Photostream.
