Weds 28 December 2022 1104hrs GMT

 

NOTE TO SELF: NEVER START A FLATPACK DIY TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Although, we REALLY needed those two new bookcases and by the 18th both were assembled and in place including safety strapping to the wall. The timing could have been better (2wks before Christmas, REALLY?! WT-bloody-H was I thinking??!!). Still need to sort the books and craft supplies those bookcases will hold but wow-wow-wow is it good to have those in, and BONUS, he was so flushed with success he even mounted two surge-protector power strips AND ran the headphone cable around the ceiling - NO MORE WIRES AND CABLES TO TRIP OVER! 

Paul has Asperger's and one of the worst triggers for him is sound. Any sound. He cannot bear the sound of the television-stereo-vacuum-doorbell-cat meowing-telephone conversations-footfall or motor traffic passing the house. He tolerates other household noises well enough - I can run a load of laundry or do washing up IF the doors between him and the kitchen are kept closed. 

 

But if I want to listen to music or the television I have to wear an earpiece plugged into the source. I gave wireless ear-pods a miss when the cost and potential for brain tumors outweighed the benefits of being able to move freely about the living room and kitchen. 

Married to Asperger's - not for the faint-hearted even when the spouse has a psychology background. Er, nothing in my 'aberrant human behaviour' training prepared me for being married to someone with Asperger's. Well nothing except being aware of where to do research and trust me it was MOST helpful to discover the condition is not a mental health issue but instead is a neurological one. OH, I found out - it's not acute passive-aggressive behaviour, it's Asperger's. Doable. 

 

OK, yeah, if I'd known before I married him I would have possibly given it all a miss. But we're ok once I worked that Asperger's thing out (and we got a private confirmation in order to avoid the NHS and the council - they love to put 'people on the spectrum' on a watch list and they've been known to seize assets and other nasty 'it's for your own good' sort of madness). Not exactly how I wanted to spend my 'golden years' but all things considered, it's fine. I joined an online support group and from reading the other posts I see I've got it pretty good comparatively speaking.

 

Despite the Asperger's, Christmas went well - quietly peaceful and companionable. We followed all the most important traditions of food, presents, and movies. The jigsaw puzzle was started on Boxing Day. We even managed, despite the Royal Mail 'industrial action' (posties on strike), to receive nine Christmas cards. 

 

And yesterday (27th) it snowed for hours, long enough that we still have lying snow at noon, with a thaw this afternoon but more snow by the weekend forecast. I would have been out there building a snowman yesterday afternoon but I'm in a mild 'acute flare' of the stoopid little heart thingie and know better than to go play in the snow. (dammit)

 

For us Christmas Week begins after the Fourth Sunday of Advent candle is lit. We played Yahtzee every night until Christmas Eve. Enjoyed nibbling on a cheese and cracker board and watched two 'ghostie stories' Christmas Eve. We watched Casablanca Christmas night - somehow Paul had never seen it. Boxing Day night we watched the Alastair Sim 1951 Scrooge - A Christmas Carol, another movie classic he'd never seen. He thought Casablanca was alright but he loved Scrooge and kept saying 'Masterpiece' throughout the viewing. 

By the 27th he was experiencing a touch of sensory overload and retreated to the bedroom to sit on the bed with his laptop on his new lap tray (yeppers, a Christmas present), he's still a bit overloaded this morning so I'm letting him alone - he'll come out when he's ready. Asperger's is never easy for the Aspie and loved ones but we've been together long enough for him to know I'm perfectly aware of his Asperger's induced needs and can manage on my own for extended periods. I spent yesterday puttering including getting more rows on his winter blanket.

 

Today will likely be the same - I'll catch up on some things wanting doing and he'll decompress and by NYE he'll be ready to spend some time back in the living room with me. Thanks to my pericarditis flare I'm having to take things slowly - do a little, rest a little, rinse and repeat. So I'm not sure I'm up to a lot of togetherness the now, his need for decompression is working for me this week.

 

So, all in, Christmas went reasonably well and I'm ready for the New Year. I've already begun (as usual) planning Christmas 2023. Applying lessons of 2022 to 2023, organising books and craft supplies to end Mount Perpetual-Stuff-On-The-Dinner-Table, finishing projects and beginning new ones. And sadly, paring down the accumulated but increasingly disused Christmas decorations. 

I love making the entire house look like Mrs Claus lives here. I like to put decorations in every room of the house. We own three Christmas trees, about a gajillion light sets and more baubles than are possible to ever get on one Christmas tree. We have pine garlands, wreaths, Nativity sets in various sizes including a fridge magnet triptych I absolutely refuse to part with. We have table linens, tree skirts, candle bridges, snowmen, village scenes, and of course Father Christmas figures. 

Paul has Asperger's. Living in a Father Christmas grotto sets his teeth on edge - he hates when I'm in a flare because he hates seeing me suffer but he loved the way I decorated this year owing to the difficulty the flares cause. Minimal. So minimal. I didn't even put a garland on the mantel this year and the fridge magnet Nativity under a cheese dome is the mantel centrepiece so bloody small you really would need a magnifying glass to see it. The tree is lucky it got the few bauble and acrylic icicles it got, and the 20 light set was the best I could manage given my waning energy levels. I did have the traditional colour candles in the Advent Wreath but changed those out Christmas night for red ones. 

And Paul loved it. He did say he missed the pine garland on the mantel, and would have liked a few more baubles on the tree - but not many more (sigh).

 

So in the coming year I mean to cull the collection and keep Christmas 2023 only a little more lavishly than Christmas 2022. 

 

2023 - BRING IT!

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 29 Nov 2022 

post begun 0815hrs GMT 

OK, right, I have to announce my new daughter-in-law is AMAZING. Well, perhaps I shouldn't say 'new' because Fox had the good sense to fall in love with her in 2019, make it permanent in 2020, and my stunningly handsome and ultra intelligent youngest grandson was born in October 2021. She is an AMAZING mum. 

I freely admit I worried a bit at the start. She's considerably younger than Fox, she's got 'body art' - piercings, tats, and all that. It makes me a slight bit uncomfortable especially given my Jewish ancestry. Oh, yes I worried about Hepatitis and how she's going to feel about all that 'art' when she's my age. 

 

And she likes to use various 'bright' hair dyes - how does she do it, really? She did it in this fluorescent green recently - and on her it looked fabulous. She's had pink hair, orange hair, green hair - and on her it all looks wonderful.

 

Erm, her family seems a bit 'jugaloo'. Nice people when you get to know them but, yeah, a bit on the jugaloo side in appearance at least. I calm my fears telling myself they have 'an interesting approach to life' and 'They mean well'. And her gran (on her dad's side) is yer basic SouthEast Alabama farm girl, Christian values, common sense, and that is a comforting thing - acorns don't fall all that far from trees, her son and grands only look jugaloo.

My dil is doing a fabulous job of being a wife and mum and step-mum to an 18yo, I'm not sure I could have managed it as well had I been in that situation. She works full-time as a restaurant manager on top of everything else. 

AMAZING lass, I'm over-the-moon with my 'new' dil. 

Other news - First Sunday of Advent was 27th November. The wreath went up on the door, the candle bridge is in the front window. The baubles are about to go on the tree and Christmas music is on continuous loop in my head. 

 

We hit a bit of a hiccup trying to get the lights going on the front garden four potted evergreens - we're using battery lights owing to the shocking cost of electricity this year and I realised too late for the annual 'switch-on' Sunday night I don't have enough rechargeable batteries to run those lights (and the ones inside the house as well). 

 

I suggested to Paul perhaps given the current 'cost of lockdown crisis' that has the Sheriff of Nottingham (Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and yes even I have to be careful to avoid using the Cockney slang for that rat bastard) putting us all on Austerity v2.0, maybe we should forgo the outdoor lights this year?

 

We put a decision on the garden lights on hold until Monday.

He is usually (ahem) a bit on the overly-frugal side but when I again mentioned the austerity thing yesterday morning, he had his coat on and was back in a flash from the ironmonger with plenty of batteries to get us through the Christmas season. I have to say those lights are a cheery sight out there. 

 

The cold is creeping up on us all up here in NE Scotland, we've had light AND hard frosts, Indian Summer a distant faint memory, and snow will likely be falling here in the next day or two. I spent the summer using up my 4W autumnal colour yarn for blankets - I have to say those blankets are stunning and nicely warm. Now I'm working on new 5W winter blankets in a different but equally warm stitch. 

 

Keeping a 'mindless' crochet blanket project going year round means my Essential Tremor is calmed a bit - by the time I've got a few rows on the shaking nearly completely stops for hours (not that I could hold a tea cup on a saucer without rattles to beat the band even after an hour or so crocheting but heigh ho). 

 

My 'long-covid' is FINALLY fading - I can taste food again (oh thank goodness!), I can look at foods in magazines and online without thinking 'where's the sick bag?!', and I can look at photos of heights without wanting to lie down and close my eyes. Far better, I can now walk a fair distance without angina and breathlessness, and the housework is less 'do only what is absolutely required' and more 'I'm going to reorganise that cupboard today'. 

 

Off now to start decorating the Christmas tree. Post completed 0909 hours.

 

SEASONS GREETINGS!!

 

 

11 November 2022 1040hrs GMT

 

THE 11TH HOUR

 

OF THE 11TH DAY

 

OF THE 11TH MONTH

 

'We will remember them'

 

 

TUESDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2022 1032HRS BST

 

Autumn is definitely here - I've had to turn the heat up from the summer setting, put blankets on the bed, and shift from summer to autumn-winter menus.

 

I love this time of year. I love all four seasons, of course, but there is something almost indescribably wonderful about autumn. From the changing colours on trees and shrubs to the no-choice-about-it having to rake leaves, I love the look of autumn - but there is so much more to my reasons for loving this season more than the others. I go full-on Christmas planning in September, I order the next year calendars and diaries. I defrost the freezers in preparation for stocking in foods including baked ahead goodies. I clean the house top to bottom taking especial care to deep clean the kitchen, I plan the Guy Fawkes fireworks purchase (buying enough to get us through not only 5th November but Hogmanay as well - it ain't New Year without fireworks!). I check to make sure the blankets and cold weather clothing I washed at late summer are still fresh. And I start planning the Christmas baking. 

I start Christmas gift shopping in February but the serious planning for the Christmas season begins in mid-September - I am well on my way to finalising the decorating scheme for Christmas 2022. A large part of my planning this year is creating a flat-back mantel tree using the 3ft 'mostly realistic' tree to cut away 'branches' to make it a flat back so it will sit on the mantle without my spending the entire season worrying the cat is going to get up there and mangle it to the point it slips off despite my having anchored it to the wall. 

There is a war on and The Mad Man In Moscow is threatening to drop nukes on the UK and Europe to punish us for sending military equipment to Ukraine. We're in the throes of a 'cost of living crisis' that threatens to morph into a Great Depression. Supply chains are disrupted and the 'blame' for said disruptions is laid at several doors. Union strikes (rail and other public transport workers, post, barristers, teachers, medics...) are making moving around the country quite difficult for those without privately owned transport - and the cost of fueling said private transport is eye-watering so the public transport strikes are especially onerous. 

 

Britain has a new Monarch and although initially he had a great lot of public goodwill, that goodwill is dimming owing to a media push to disclose some uncomfortable truths about King Charles III (seriously, we've known for years he has his valet squeeze the toothpaste out, did we need to be reminded?). The most disturbing 'tidbit' against the King is the newly announced criminal investigation of some of his closest aides comfort level accepting satchels overflowing with cash, but also not nice is the announcement of the new season of The Crown (Netflix) which will focus on...Charles-Diana-Camilla. Not to mention the deeply unsavoury row with 'Harry and Meghan' who are demanding Royal titles for their two children (per the 1917 Patent). Apparently His Majesty is (rightly) reluctant to grant the titles owing to 'Harry and Meghan' having the unfortunate propensity to merchandise any and every Royal connection they have (whilst not lifting a finger to support the Monarchy they so dearly love to tarnish with their professional victim-hood). 

I could go on listing all the dismaying news. Instead I'm going to lose myself in autumn.

 THANK-YOU, MA'AM

 

 

FRIDAY 9 SEPTEMBER 2022 0649HR BST

 

HRM QUEEN ELIZABETH II

BORN - 21 APRIL 1926 (LONDON, ENGLAND)

DIED - 8 SEPTEMBER 2022 (BALMORAL CASTLE, ABERDEENSHIRE, SCOTLAND)

 

The United Kingdom is now in a ten day mourning period

 

THE QUEEN IS DEAD - LONG LIVE THE KING 

GOD SAVE KING CHARLES III

 

 

 

Weds 24 Aug 2022 1343hrs BST

 

According to my son I am officially a 'foodie' (still looking for the holy grail of salt and pepper mills, dammit) owing to my two latest 'kitchen gadget' items. 

 

One - a worktop 'mini' oven. I used the ' ' for that word 'mini' because this so-called mini-oven is the same size as my current integrated oven but sits conveniently on the worktop (HUZZAH - no more aching back and potential dropped meals, I bloody hate having Essential Tremor!) and uses a third - YES, A THIRD! - of the electricity per kwh as my integrated one. Blimey, a triple win in my book. We chose the worktop oven after comparing the cost of replacing the integrated (and ancient) oven (including rewiring the kitchen and building a heat-proof cabinet to raise the new unit) to the cost of the worktop one that stands on the worktop and plugs into the mains without any other cost than the unit itself. 

Two - a twin crock slow-cooker unit - INVESTMENT COOKING AT A MUCH LOWER COST THAN USING THE OVEN OR HOBS, YES PLEASE!! Today I'm making two braised beef joints, a 1kg topside cut in half with each half in one of the twin crocks. One for the dinner table tonight (with leftovers being shredded for sandwiches tomorrow) and one for the freezer. Next up, twin crocks of chile con carne then Cajun red beans and sausage, spag bol sauce with mince, and then... I love investment cooking.The twin crock unit joins the other three slow-cookers in different sizes from 1.5L to 4L.

My DIL and friends on the US West Coast tell me the 'cost of living crisis' is hitting them as badly as it is hitting us here in the UK - we're all wracking our brains to find ways to cut costs on everything. 

 

I'd feel smug about my head-start on preparing for this nightmare as I've been anticipating this since 2015 and have been busily squirreling away all sorts from non-perishable home medical supplies to clothing and homewares. 

 

But I don't feel smug at all, and I don't love everyone else is looking at misery with me now.

 

I've always been a food squirrel but ratcheted that up in December 2019 when news began trickling out of China of a 'weird novel new pneumonia' killing people there and I realised my heart wobble in March of that year was quite likely this new pneumonia when the news of it being found in Spanish sewage as far back as February 2019...the dental hygienist who did my semi-annual cleaning early March 2019 spent the entire hour telling me all the details of her lovely weekend break to Spain and within ten days of that visit I was having the wobble of all wobbles.

 

Thought it was just a particularly bad acute flare (recurrent pericarditis) but when I finally went to the GP in late April, the blood draw indicated 'presence of unusual SARS-like antibodies' and by February 2020 we knew it was Covid and I joined a group of Britons having regular antibody checks. Ftr, I've had the Omicron variant now as well as the 'Wuhan' variant - and my antibodies are still 'robust'. Three years later I'm finally coming out of 'Long Covid'. 

 

So in December 2019 I just had a feeling things were about to go wonky in a big way. I anticipated quarantines, and supply chain disruptions owing to warehouse worker and lorry driver illness. I ordered a chest freezer and a tall bookcase to convert to a 'pantry of doom'.

Since then I've been in warp-drive, despite the physical limitations of what we now know was Long Covid, trying to keep the house stocked with enough stored food to get us through several months if supply chain failure-lockdowns-you name the damned disaster happen.

I don't feel smug at all, thanks to the cost of living nightmare we're all facing I have moments of gut-wrenching anxiety at the possibilities, actually. Every morning I wake up to spend hours looking for gaps in the preps and thanks to that absolute bastard Putin threatening using tactical nukes on us, one of my now-filled gaps is iodine tabs and kelp powder 'just in-case'. 

Blankets, cold weather clothing, off-grid heating and cooking, medical supplies (because getting in to see a medic is harder than pulling hens teeth), food, OH GOD WHAT HAVE I FORGOT??!!

Right, panic moment over, the biggie just now is the cost of living crisis that includes food and electricity and natural gas. We gave up the car a year ago (DAMMIT!!) so the eye-watering cost of petrol isn't a huge problem to us and we're still saving money despite the rise in delivery costs. But now we're looking at the cost of electricity and natural domestic gas supplies going unaffordably high on top of everything else.

 

So, no, I don't feel smug at being somewhat better prepared than most. What I feel is sick at heart over being right things were on the verge and that it wouldn't take much to start a cascade of catastrophe. I am happy about my cost-saving measures (slow-cookers, 'mini' ovens, filled pantry and freezers, more) but I'm utterly horrified to have been right. 

 

The cascade has begun.

Things are worse thanks to all the union strike actions, it does feel as though all these vital services worker strikes (rail, bus, post, binmen - all striking the now and credible rumours are nurses and doctors are about to strike) are deliberately striking now in a concerted effort to bring down not only the Government but society itself. 

Crime including extremely violent crime is on a horrific up-tick as a consequence of both budget cuts to force strength and the absurd focus on 'Internet hate crime' rather than, you know, actual crime. 

 

Our military strength is also at the lowest point it has been ever in living memory (but our navy is still in the Channel 'rescuing desperate migrants' who are in actuality criminals attempting to enter the UK illegally). 

 

Behind it all? BLM, Socialists, and fascist Klaus Schwab and his minions (GO TO HELL ROBERT DOWNEY JR AND NICOLE KIDMAN - I'LL STARVE BEFORE I EAT BUG PASTE, YOU NUTTERS!) who are gleefully rubbing their hands at the 'great reset' rubbish they're pushing with what looks like the full cooperation of most of our 'dear leaders'. 

 

Damn them all, I hope I live long enough to see their big fail. 

 

I hate to say this but things are as bad as I anticipated back in 2015. Perhaps worse.

 

 

 

 

Weds 3rd August 2022 1200+hrs BST

 

I had a friend named Eve. We met online at heart conditions support forum and soon realised we lived only a few physical miles from one another. Our heart health conditions meant f2f meet-ups were usually far too difficult to organise and we became primarily email pen pals. 

 

Over the too few years I knew her, her emails seemed to miraculously arrive to my inbox just when I needed a good giggle and natter and rail against the machine. To say I found her friendship priceless is an enormous understatement and I can only hope she was being more truthful than kind when she'd tell me she found my emails 'just the tonic'. 

We shared political gossip and rants, 'housekeeping for Lady Hearties' tips, heart and diabetes safe recipes, ghostie stories (oh my word Eve had some hair-raising personal experiences to share!), craft ideas, jokes, worries Russia is about to nuke Scotland (Trident) and the cost of living crisis brought on first by Sunak's insane overspends during Covid and his refusal to chase down the fraudsters, and the eye-watering price rises thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We talked about EVERYTHING including our religious beliefs, our families, our lives from childhood (hers was harrowing which made her even more admirable considering how she dealt with it and got her life sorted so well) and our mutual military and polis careers - I served in the USCG-R and later went on to work with the police as what is now known as a forensic psychologist consultant. 

 

I can't say what she did beyond saying she held highly responsible positions with the Army and the Met until she retired. Eve and I were frontline participants of the equal rights for women days and we had quite a lot to say about the current crop of 'Anything you can do, I can do better' lassies, not all of it nice and rightly so, them that are ungrateful little whingers.

Her emails were the highlight of my day ranking right up there with emails and snaps from my newest DIL and when a few days would pass without a word from her especially during the last six months of her life I'd know she was in hospital again. I'd send her a 'Write when you can' email and then check the inbox several times a day hoping to see a note from her.

 

Her health was much worse than my piddly little complaints, she'd been T2D for years and 20 or so years ago was discovered to have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). The diabetes, despite being meticulously managed, eventually led to a chronic liver condition. 

 

Frankly Eve was something of a medical miracle in that despite her multiple life-limiting and threatening conditions, she had managed to not only survive but avoid becoming a full-on invalid for so many years. It was only the last 18 months of her life she slowly went from being quite active and fully engaged in/with Life to semi-invalidism including periodic 'incarcerations' (her words) in hospital, a place she absolutely loathed especially after the penultimate hospitalisation during which she was accidentally (on purpose, she believed) put on a 'female' ward that included trans-women who'd retained their dangly bits and full mustaches and beards yet were determinedly addressed and referred to in the feminine. As a consequence of some of the behaviours these ward-mates displayed, Eve was determined to never go back to that hospital again.

 

Then in late June 2022 her health disintegration caused her to collapse and be taken to hospital intensive cardiac unit care. Only her husband was permitted to visit her.

She fought for weeks to once again beat the odds and stagger breathlessly back out into the world. Sadly, however, hospital acquired pneumonia stole her life 18 July 2022.

She was 78 years old, was 'vain but in a good way' (said by mourners through smiles and sobs during the wake yesterday) with a stunning wardrobe ranging from leopard and tiger print tops and leggings to the most elegant silks - my friend Eve had delightful taste and I loved seeing her latest outfits. She wouldn't leave the bedroom until she had applied make-up and a wafting of exquisite perfumes even when her diary included nothing more than a trip from bedroom to sofa in the sitting room.

 

She'd led an absolutely amazing life that included highly successful and hugely interesting careers in the British Army AND the Metropolitan Police (before it went all woke, long before - Eve had some very interesting stories about her military and police careers to share, always careful not to overshare and violate the Secrecy Act). 

 

She was married twice, once to an out and out rotter for a few years just long enough to fall pregnant and deliver three children, and then to a wonderfully 'perfect in his imperfections' gentleman who gave her just over forty years of married joy. He is understandably utterly devastated at the loss of the light of his life.

 

She raised two sons and a daughter who gave her a now grown granddaughter. Two of her children and her granddaughter survive her and it is my everlasting hope that when she opened her eyes 'on the other side', her deeply missed son was who welcomed her to Heaven. 

She gave me so much more than I fear I gave her, she was politically astute, generous, deeply intelligent, no-nonsense yet incredibly kind. I will miss her terribly for the rest of my life.

 

 

6th Jul 2022 1530+hrs BST

 

I was making deviled eggs in the kitchen when the news came across the GBN 'breaking news' announcement. Multiple casualties, number and conditions unknown, conflicting shooter descriptions including where the rounds were coming from, 'more to follow'. I finished the eggs and spent the rest of the afternoon glued to the television and laptop trying to find out more. 

I live in Scotland, usually I don't 'make a thing' of Fourth of July but this year despite my visceral loathing of Biden, et al, I decided we would have a low-key celebration of the USA. I planned to grill steaks and serve the eggs, baked potatoes and sweet corn. We had eight extra long sparklers left over from Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night and NYE, planning to light the sparklers once dark finally fell (close to midnight, we are in NE Scotland after all). 

 

Instead whilst scouring for more news on the shooting in Illinois, we ate the eggs then a bit later I used the oven grill for the steaks. The baked potatoes and sweet corn became defrosted (better cooking) frozen oven chips with no corn or other veg. We ate to live, it was no celebratory live-to-eat fun afternoon on the patio, not when it was becoming obvious several people had been mown down by 'someone' and children were apparently especially targeted by the shooter.

We did light the sparklers but not in a spirit of fun - we lit them as more like something akin to lighting candles in memory of the dead and hope for the injured. 

Why Crimo, the alleged shooter, did this is something I doubt we'll ever know, my guess is he's going to say 'Because I wanted to, because I could' or similar. 

I've lived in Scotland for 12 years. I only miss my family and a few silly things like Taco Bell and Joann Fabrics. But the night of the Fourth as we lit those sparklers, I missed whipoorwills calling in the woods across the street from the house I raised Matt in. I missed day lilies and azaleas and the fireworks show at Fort Rucker. I missed America that night in a way I hadn't for 12 years. 

That America began to fade six months into Obama's first administration - 12 years on it's gone and I'm not sure it can ever come back from the divisions he and his 'team' caused and Biden is now gleefully perpetuating. Trump tried (yes I know, he's an unpleasant oaf who made more than a few mistakes like bringing his equally unpleasant sprogs with him to the White House but he also tried mightily to MAGA and would have succeeded had not the Democrats undermined him at every turn). 

I don't know why Crimo (or who ever the actual killer is) did it. I do know Obama and Biden did quite a lot to foment the conditions that led to 'someone' to climb to a store roof and take aim on Americans celebrating the little bit of hope and freedom they had left. 

Blood on your hands, Obama and Biden, blood on your wretched evil anti-USA hands.

 

 

 

 

26th May 2022 1052hrs BST

 

Photos of the Texas schoolchildren and their teachers murdered by an 18yo nutter have been published. No words sufficient to the need.

It's time for new potholders. After purchasing dozens on dozens over the years I've come to realise the buying or making of potholders, an absolute kitchen essential, is an exceptionally and needlessly difficult task.

I've tried ALL the 'store-boughts' from simple squares sold at eye-watering prices to the double-ended mitts priced even more eye-wateringly. And do you know, none of those potholders have ever been right for protecting hands from being burnt taking things out of the oven or off the hob. 

So I tried making my own. I've tried EVERYTHING from multiple layers of wadding and denim to 'decorator cottons' with layers of wadding and a product called InsulBrite meant to be the ultimate in hand protection insulation on home-sewn potholders. 

Meh

So then I needed to exercise my hands (Essential Tremor is 'calmed' by using the affected limb or voice daily in a dedicated exercise period) and chose crochet as my daily go-to exercise to maintain manual dexterity. 

A SIDEBAR MOMENT: I bloody hate having ET, a 'neurological movement disorder' that can be genetic in origin or as a consequence of any number of virus or inflammatory or physical trauma - and boy howdy have I had virus/inflammatory/physical trauma. My 'adventures in ET' began around aged 9 and the medics decreed my 7yo bout with Rheumatic Fever that led to Rheumatic Heart Syndrome that led to 'the mildest case ever of Rheumatoid Arthritis' the consultants have ever seen, a predisposition to things like recurrent pericarditis, and finally, gave me the neurological consequence ET. 

I shouldn't (and mostly try not to) complain - there are ET patients with far worse manifestations of the condition. My hands shake, I can't hold a dinner plate or a tea cup and saucer without rattling, I have to use weighted eating utensils as the tremor means getting a bite of food safely into my mouth is on the seriously tricky side, and recently I've had to start using straws to drink from a tumbler held in both hands to prevent spilling or dropping. 

Really the worst is the ET has moved to my voice box and for someone whose entire life has been about singing, that part REALLY is upsetting. If I don't read aloud EVERY DAY for at least 30 minutes, it's truly a toss-up as to what my voice is going to sound like when I try to speak. 

Yeah, it's depressing. END SIDEBAR MOMENT

So, anyroad, I use crochet and needlepoint to force my hands to work a bit better. 'Mindless-patternless' crochet works best, so I've crocheted so many blankets - real whole bed blankets, none of those measly meagre 'afghans' you can't curl up under without half your legs sticking out and your shoulders going without the cosy warmth - I make whole bed blankets with my mindless crochet. 

I've also made no end of table runners and placemats and dishcloths...and several years ago I started working on crocheting the ultimate potholders. One layer was a potholder fail but how I ended up with some really nice dishcloths:) Two layers gives a bit more protection but after a while I realised I was grabbing four of those two layer potholders, two two-layer ones per hand to take a baking tray or casserole dish out of the oven. I will say all those two-layer potholders have been repurposed and do make excellent worktop protectors for putting down a hot tray or dish, so, no waste there.

For the ultimate hand protecting potholders, though, I think I've cracked it - four layers of white 4W cotton in single crochet stitch on a 5mm hook.

 

(ch21, sc into br 2nd ch from hk and across - 20 sc sts, ch1 and turn, sc into base and across, ch1 and turn, rep for total 25 rows, FO and WI, set aside and make three more); 

 

Whip stitch the four layers together then use a 3.5mm hook and mercerised '4ply' cotton in contrast colour to join and make a border of four single crochet rounds. Don't forget to 'increase with ch1' at the corners to ensure nice squared corners.

 

Now, they ain't all that pretty but these work a treat - no more burnt hands. I do have to be careful to keep the potholders dry but that's the rule no matter what hand protection a body uses to take things out of the ovens or off the hob.

I boil wash kitchen linens - the white and mercerised border colours don't fade in the 90C wash, the weave goes even tighter with each wash so the potholders are ever more protective, and my hands get their exercise. Winning!

The only thing wrong with mindless-patternless crochet is being unoccupied keeping up with pattern directions means the mind wanders. Right, usually that's not a bad thing but the past two days whilst working on my newest sets of potholders all I can think about are those 19 children and two teachers, and their grieving loved ones. 

 

Lord, may the souls of your faithful departed find your rest and through your magnified presence may their loved ones left behind find comfort and strength in a sure and certain knowledge of the resurrection and reunion into life everlasting.

 

 

2 April 2022 1337hrs BST:

 

Do I remember where I was when the Argies invaded the Falklands? No. Life with Crusty was already 'scary' by April 1982 and I knew better than to show any interest in anything British. Point of fact, he took such a bitterness against the British that I hid my English-Scots accent the entire 17 years we were together. It wasn't easy, that, and I had to be very careful to avoid stress as my real accent would slip through. I tried to keep up with the news, sneaking out to the news stands (vending machines stood on sidewalks in America, remember those?) or the international section of book stores. I knew better than to show ANY interest when television news reports about the Falklands or anything British was on.

 

As the years went by his feelings towards Britain and the British increased sharply. I'll never forget being at work one night at the Coco Beach Hilton (I worked for the landscape company holding the contract to maintain the property landscaping including the interiors), standing outside at one of the service taps filling my water jugs when a young Englishman struck up a conversation about my work and it going on to discussing the Falklands War. 

 

Saying his trying to talk about the war inspired total terror in me is an understatement - by then (summer of '93) I'd discovered Crusty was paying private detectives to follow me around, was hiding listening and tracking devices in the house and on the car. I was genuinely afraid he would hear I spoke well of the British saving the islands from Argentina and equally afraid conversing with a fellow Brit would bring my real accent front and centre. 

 

All these years later I am still deeply ashamed of the way I spoke to that young man - rudely, dismissively, shrugging my shoulders when he tried to tell me about a friend of his who'd been part of the mission and had suffered some physical and mental injury as a consequence. 

 

I can still see him standing there on the pool deck, moonlight causing his blond hair to glow as his face fell when I was so unkind. At the time all I wanted was for him to go away before Crusty could find yet another reason to make my life miserable.

 

(To newer readers, you'll have to trawl through previous, years old posts to discover why I didn't leave - suffice it to say every time I tried to leave he'd put a gun to Fox's or my head. Literally)

 

Do I remember where I was the day the war started in the same way I remember where I was the day President Kennedy was murdered, no. But to my everlasting shame I remember that night on the Coco Beach Hilton pool deck and OH how I wish I could explain why I was so ill-mannered to that young man (who is now my age or possibly more, we didn't talk long enough for me to discover his age), how I wish I could apologise for my fear keeping me from expressing the sorrow I felt hearing about his friend, and how for the rest of my life - to this day - I have prayed for his friend. 

 

 

It is the Lenten Season. I am oddly unrepentant - chocolates abound at my house but to my credit I am trying to say a daily Rosary and pray for all souls even the ones I personally find repugnant. Read on.

 

Every hour seems to bring another Russian made horror in the Ukraine. Every hour another piece of video makes the rounds biased towards one or the other side. No-one knows what is true about casualties on either side. Depending on who is reporting, the Russians are 'stalled' and 'losing' OR the Ukrainians are bombing and shooting their own people including innocent civilians queueing for bread or driving their young families out of the war er, conflict er, 'special de-nazification operation' zone (Russian Government has outlawed use of 'war' and 'conflict' to describe their brutally barbaric assault on a sovereign nation). 

 

Meanwhile here in the UK we are constantly being told we're racist for the outpouring of support for the fleeing Ukrainian women and children when we supposedly wouldn't do the same for Syrians (although we bloody well did!) and heap scorn on us for being angry the predominantly young fit male dinghy people still rocking up on our beaches or ringing 999 for an RNLI or Coastguard tow into Dover from the middle of the English Channel after ridding themselves of working dinghy motors and waiting long enough for the discarded documents to float sufficiently far enough away from the dinghy to prevent identification and subsequent deportation back to where ever the hell they strolled from. 

 

Sorry, but I insist on helping genuine refugees rather than dirtbag cowards in stolen dinghies happy to act as point men for full-scale invasion by people who hate us and want nothing more than to see our blood and dismembered bodies on the pavements. Readers may choose to see me as a cynic/hysteric/racist - but I lived through the last two years of the Guatemalan Civil War and I know PRECISELY what is about to happen right here in Britain thanks to Fifth Columnists and leftie-luvvie self-hating Brit Guardianistas if we don't wake up NOW and stop the madness. 

Oh dear. I started this post to update my readers on anything besides what is happening in the Ukraine and the British official (meaning Government) and unofficial (meaning the average Brit watching this insanity unfold over the news broadcasts). Instead I've gone on a bit of a rant. oops - But the threat of nuclear destruction (from the Madman of Moscow) is just that last straw pushing most of us right over the edge - I cannot wrap my head around the horror that bastard is unleashing but I also cannot wrap my head around FakeBook and Instacrap permitting posts actively calling for murder on Russia for what Putin and his Kremlinsky mates are doing.

Spring is beginning to be less a longed for turn and becoming more a reality - just in time as I've turned the heat down to 'feeble' (rather than 'comfortable but not excessive'). A real help now that loony masquerading as the Prime Minister's arrogant little 'wifie' has him ordering massive green 'net-zero' changes that are ratcheting up energy bills even before Putin went full-on insane and invaded a neighbouring sovereign country, the Chancellor (but is in truth the Sheriff of Nottingham reborn, grrrrrr) is taxing us to the breaking point. 

 

Adding to the 'joy' the rank poseur claiming to be the Health Secretary of State (no, not the caught-on-CCTV adulterer but the 'I am muslim but I don't practice it' one. Doesn't practice, yeah, sure) has announced a fourth jab of God-Knows-What oh I mean the 'Covid vaccine'. No word yet on it becoming another exercise in coercion but it wouldn't surprise me, I fully anticipate the return of scorn, derision, and ostracism leading finally lockdowns for any of us remaining un-jabbed.

 

Sturgeon the wannabe Empress of Scotland says we have to keep wearing face masks on public transport 'and other spaces' but travellers are free to arrive from overseas without having to test or prove vax-status, and we Scots no longer have to either for domestic travel although we still (d'uh) have to comply with international destination vaccination and testing requirements. 

Glasgow City Council has stupidly declared from June 2022 the entire city will be a low-emissions-zone where ALL cars-buses-taxis running petrol or diesel are outlawed. The council has graciously (grrrr) granted residents a one year grace period to be rid of their petrol and diesel vehicles and buy electric bicycles or cars. In effect pricing residents out of Glasgow. God only knows what this new LEZ is going to do to tourism and business if people can't get in and around town in anything but an electric taxi even if some poor cabbie can afford to buy AND run one - another little 'bonus' of the LEZ and electric motors 'deal' is if your shiny eye-wateringly expensive electric motor is on the charger when Government decides it needs an electricity boost, they can drain your battery to plump up theirs. 

 

Er, don't need to drive anywhere in a hurry (you know, like A&E when a loved one needs to go to Casualty with a life-threatening injury or illness but the ambulance service advises a ten-20 hour wait and yep, it's happening all the time now, people really have died waiting for an ambulance right here in Scotland. And England, Wales, and probably Northern Ireland but news from there is thin on the ground since the Protocol has caused so much trouble). 

Right, I give up, I'll just post this. It is Lent - and I am unrepentant about being very angry about my so-called 'Golden Years' being so tarnished by a rotter like Putin and closer-to-home kill-joys like that focking Carrie Symonds-Johnson! To be clear, my anger is contained. Restrained to kicking a tree stump and no more. 

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

 

 

 

 

I've held off posting anything in hope Putin would back off and bring his troops back to Moscow. A vain hope, clearly. We are in the opening days of an exceptionally ruthless war being waged by Russia on the Ukraine and sensible people understand the plan Putin is following includes moving on Poland and other former USSR states to force them back into the 'arms of Mother Russia'.

Back in 2001 a Russian friend of mine told me 'Putin means to bring back USSR'. I believed him then and now more than then. 

We in the West bear some responsibility for what is happening if only for the 'pooh-poohing' against any wiser head warning Putin was going to do any of what he's doing now. I learned a long time ago to smile and nod and keep my opinion to myself - no-one wanted to hear it but they did quite enjoy ridiculing me as a 'conspiracy theorist modern day Cassandra' (you know, that Greek lass who turned out to be, well, spot-on with her warnings of impending doom). 

 

But it was more than mere scoffing, it was a genuine and frankly quietly arrogant disbelief that Putin would ever be so mad as to actually invade Ukraine. But he has, he has now, and thanks to decades of dialling down troop strength here in the UK, we cannot even defend ourselves from stealthy 'dinghy people' much less Putin's ravening hordes.

 

(GRRRRRRRR on those illegals swanning across the Channel in flimsy inflatables knowing our Government will take them in, give them pizza and the key-card to a 5* en-suite hotel room).  

Forgive the profanity but we bloody sleep-walked into WWIII.

For the first time in 77 year, European civilians are taking shelter from bombing attacks. Credible rumours are circulating Putin has used 'the father of all bombs' (thermobaric or 'vacuum' bombs that suck the oxygen from the bombed area and cause instant vaporisation or the horror of crushed lungs, a truly agonising way to die according to medics).

 

Children with cancers are huddled in hospital basements hoping for evacuation that quite likely may not come. 

 

Husbands are putting loved ones (wives, children, elderly parents) on trains and buses to the nearest NATO member state border and then taking up arms to defend Ukraine from Putin.

 

Russian conscripts are texting and emailing 'back home' to say they had no idea they were being sent to Ukraine to kill, that they are in the middle of a real war and they anticipate dying any moment. 

 

Meanwhile here in Britain, compassion and common sense war with one another - 'We want to give sanctuary to genuine refugees but we have credible intel Russian assassins are impersonating real refugees to gain access to the the UK and EU, so we have to proceed carefully to ensure only genuine refugees arrive to British shores' - and being a compassionate but pragmatic person myself, I not only understand but agree the lot must be very carefully vetted before flinging open the gates to Britain. 

 

So far we're seeing skyrocketing fuel prices at the filling stations, truly shocking rises in natural gas and electricity costs to householders, and steadily rising food costs. No shortages to speak of yet but that will come if this war goes on. 

 

Paul and I are quietly tucked up hoping the worst will not come, that a miracle will happen and Putin's threats to nuke the West will never be carried through. 

 

We pray for peace, we pray for the people in the war zone.

 

Tonight at midnight the clock and calendar tick over into Lent. We pray for the world.