Back in Blogland - Eventually

It's 6am [Tuesday 21 April]. I'm just home from driving my last visitor to the morning ferry for her journey home to Glasgow. 

For the last month and more I have had visitors. It's been wonderful. Fraser of my New Zealand family and his partner came and stayed for a while and for the last week, Sue, one of my oldest friends has been staying.

John and Sue came to the Island, as I did, in 1974 but they arrived a few months earlier.  We became close friends almost immediately and we have been close friends ever since then although, sadly, John died in 2019. When John retired they moved to Glasgow to be nearer their children. My surviving son, on the other hand, is an Islander through and through and still lives here (although he's away at sea a lot - he's a chief engineer on super-yachts). Working at sea was - and to some extent is - typical of Islanders from here.

The first thing I discovered when I tried to blog this morning was that my absence from Blogland (I assume that was the reason) meant that I had to jump through hoops to get back into my blog. I even had to find my password which was rather frightening for a while.

Apart from having just become Treasurer of the Bowling Club almost my commitments are easing off. I have discovered that I'm not as young as I was although I am, I confess, surprised at how much energy I have lost now I'm in my 80s.

My parents were still walking up Blencathra in the English Lake District when they were in their late 80s and early 90s. In my early 80s I still frequently walk the three miles rounds the Castle Grounds but it's fairly flat and the 'usual' walk is just 3 miles.

I wrote the above on the date at the start of the post and then went out and when I came back I couldn't get into my blog.  I've no idea what happened but it was a bit scary.  All those years of blogging and all of a sudden......nothing.  Until this evening when I tried a different platform and in I got: but I had to use my password. Thank heaven it was stored away somewhere.

So I shall post this whilst all is going well. Hopefully a more interesting post will follow soon.

The Ability to Remember and Memories.

I woke very early this morning. Apart from anything I had cramp.  I got up, walked around and eventually went back to bed. Sleep obviously wasn't an option so I decided to have a thinking session. Thinking has never been one of my strong points. That was my Brother, CJ's, forté. However, I came up with some good ideas relating to a combination of the mundane (practical things like meals for the next few days) to blogging. I lay there writing blogs in what passes for my mind. I decided on a plan for those days this coming week where I had 'free time' (not many!). Then disaster struck. I dozed off for a short while. When I woke I couldn't recall a single idea that I'd had. 

I'm writing this this evening, some hours later.  I'm sure that many of you will have read occasional tales of woe about my lack of a memory. I come from a family with phenomenal memories. 

As an example, in 2001, my father as he lay dying at the age of 94 (when his heart had failed and wouldn't even give him enough oxygen to allow him to raise an arm) was taken into a nursing home. I was at home on Lewis. I got into the car and went for the lunchtime ferry and, with an overnight stop, arrived in Liverpool around lunchtime the next day.

I was saying hello to my father when a lady with a clipboard and briefcase came in. She introduced herself as being from the welfare department. She had come to assess my father for his suitability for a nursing home place (or, presumably, an alternative). I should say that my father had heart failure and couldn't raise his arm or even a hand to his face to give himself a drink.

The welfare officer started asking my father the usual, and to me at that moment silly, questions to asses his mental faculties. At this point, I (who was obviously very tired both physically and emotionally) completely unreasonably berated the social worker for harassing someone in my father's condition. She was rather taken aback but my father saved the day by saying "Oh for heaven's sake stop acting like a couple of children.  I assume you want to know how compos mentis I am. I'm in a nursing facility. We live in a constitutional monarchy."  He then went on to name members of the government and so on until the social worker turned to me and said "Well that's us well and truly put in our place. I don't think I need to bother your father any more. I think we can safely say I have all the information I need to approve the placement".  She thanked my father and said cheerio. 

Dad died a few days later..

Laughing Horse Awards

I was up very early (just after 6am) this morning and I've just been wondering if I could find something to blog about today. Sunday is my 'get everything done at home' day. It also tends to be the day when I have people to dinner (an evening meal for me). 

For some reason YP's Laughing Horse Awards popped into what passes for my mind.

I've never been particularly imaginative - the result, I always say, of having, more than half a century ago, studied public administration and law at university and had a career as a bureaucrat. 

Of course it may well be that it was the other way around and that it was because I was unimaginative that I became a bureaucrat. 

However, I managed to find topics that kept my blogs going for many years so it should not be too hard to keep things going a bit longer. I miss not spending as much time in Blogland..

I think many of my readers also read YP's blog entitled "Yorkshire Pudding". (Clicking on the words in parenthesis with take you to the blog.).

I've never quite understood how YP managed to come up with all the topics he's blogged about over the last 21 years or thereabouts or, indeed, found the time particularly as he spends so much time out wandering with his camera. It has shown a single-minded approach. I often wish that I had had that dedication (to anything!).

It's a Good Day

Firstly I apologise for the paucity of my posts. Some friends have become concerned and, despite emailing me, appear not to have had a response and have taken to communicating with one of my close Island friends. Many apologies to all to whom I have caused concern.

I woke up this morning. Therefore it is a Good Day. One day I won't and I will be really pissed off (Apologies for the vulgarity: translation "very upset".). I usually wake up and get up within a few minutes once I have confirmed that it is 'getting up time'. If it's not I turn over and return (or attempt to return) to the Land of Nod. By that I do not mean a biblical location where Cain was exiled after killing Abel, but my metaphorical term for sleep or dreamland.

Going back to the phrase "or attempt to return" I should say that there was a time when that was not only a certainty but it was also instant. Unfortunately I have discovered (and I know I'm not alone in this) that now I'm in my 80s sleep is nowhere near as automatic if one wakes up in the night. In theory the body must need just as much sleep as ever IF one expends as much energy during the day as ever. I am very fortunate in still being very active.

Sometimes I wake either in the morning or at random times during the night and I spent a good while thinking about Life, The Universe and Everything before possibly returning to sleep.

Today was a fairly typical day in that I went into town this morning and did odds and ends and met a friend for coffee. This afternoon I, and another friend, went to visit a mutual friend. I have known her since November 1974 when we both arrived on Lewis. 

I came to work with Comhairle nan Eilean (the local authority for the Western Isles) and Mutual Friend was married to a very close colleague. He has long since left the Island but Mutual Friend stayed and we are close and firm friends of over half a century.