When I was staying overnight at Gaz’s I woke very early when it was still quite dark. As I looked up I was greeted by this sight on top of the wardrobe. I don’t scare easily but given my sleep deprivation prior to the few hours I’d just had……
Thanks to Heather I have a new banner heading for the blog. I’m really delighted. My header has always been rather boring: an appropriate sort of header for me I thought. Now that I’ve decided that I might be a tad less boring (if a tad more eccentric) I thought it was time for a change of blog image too. All I have to do now is learn how to add more pictures. I’m sure it’ll be within my competence. Hmm. We’ll see. Anyway I hope that you like it too. Thanks Heather.
Gaz met me at Glasgow Airport and we went to his flat via the Braehead Shopping Centre so that I could get a new cell phone and some underwear from M & S given that the stopover was not originally planned. Now that I’ve had a chance to take stock and look at the photos I thought I’d share a few with you. Gaz has a hookah. Leastways that’s what I always thought it was called but I’ve since learned a number of other names. Gaz, for example, called it a shisha. He has been spending time in the Middle East recently and became fascinated by them. So I got a brief lesson. The tobacco smoked is called molasses because it is steeped in the substance. Gaz had ‘double apple molasses. The ritual is fascinating and we actually had a smoke (I should add that I used to smoke a pipe but haven’t smoked one for many years). The smoke passing through water is completely different to the ‘raw’ smoke from a pipe. It’s not something I would take up but it was an experience I can say I’m pleased to have had.
Having arrived back at Eagleton Notes I have realised that a while ago I had a brief attempt at making the header more exciting. It was an experiment and, whilst I like the idea, I don’t particularly like the execution. The side panels are rather deficient too. There’s a bit of work to be done. Now if I were like Heather instead of saying it I’d have done it in the same amount of time. Me? I’ll do it. Eventually.
I do choose original titles don’t I?
I arrived back on the Island on Saturday afternoon to be met at the Airport by a long huge hug from Pat. At the risk of repeating myself (why should I suddenly worry about that?!) I can think of few things more calculated to make me feel alone and lonely than arriving at the airport with no-one to welcome me.
I am starting this post at 0723 on Tuesday 27 April. I’ve been up for quite a while after my first good night’s sleep since I set foot on Scottish soil. Although the *** nightmares (well they were only ponies I suppose) are back. Sibelius’s First Symphony is pounding out. There is a vibrant urgency in this symphony combining the last throws of the great Romantic Symphonies with a push into the music of the Twentieth Century (In which, I think, it was written. Having said that although Sibelius died in, again I think, 1957 he wrote little or nothing of consequence in the last 30 years of his life and I can’t recall how old he was when he died. I must go and look it all up – sometime.) Back to the vibrant urgency! That is how I have felt since I returned. There is so so much to be done. there always is, of course, but, whether it’s my imagination or I just have a short memory, I feel more than ever that there is so much to be done and so little time in which to do it. Which is odd if you think about it. Perhaps that’s one for A Life in The Day Of.
Then there are the silly things. Where do I keep the saucepans? (The same place I’ve kept them for the last 15 years since I built this kitchen!). Why have the saucepans moved around (Friends have been staying). In fact so much seems to have moved but, when I think about it, I realise that I moved quite a lot of things last summer and my recollection just hasn’t caught up. There are the missing things. Well, not actually, they are things I take for granted in one life and suddenly realise that I’m in the wrong life to find that particular thing.
By now it’s nearly midday.
I started making a list on Saturday evening. I was on the second A 4 page by Sunday. Now I’ve edited the three pages into lists: communicate, indoors, outdoors, plan. Then there’s the URGENT list. Then there’s the I can’t cope I’m going to have another coffee/pour a glass of wine response.
I spent much of Monday shopping and sorting things in Town (I even had my eyes tested). Today I decided I wasn’t leaving the house. Blogland beckoned. However, this morning was spent on the phone and ‘sorting’ problems. After two years I now have online access to my cell phone account! At one stage I was on the phone to New Zealand when my other phone rang with a call from New Zealand! I have made three appointments and ordered my prescriptions from the Docs.
Have you ever sat somewhere with a drip? The water sort! The roof of the Study is a double skinned polycarbonate lined internally with wood. Onto the lead flashing was falling a drip of water from the gutter about 2 feet above. It sounded, like, a hammer each time a drop fell. Despite the rain I got the ladder out and scaled the dizzy heights up to the gutter. It was blocked. Now it isn’t. Whilst the ladder was out I put up my wireless weather station. Oh yes. Things were getting done. Now for Blogland.
Why does this wireless keyboard and the previous one which it replaced (both being used here with Palin my laptop) keep missing out letters – and failing to register the shift key - whilst my wireless keyboard in New Zealand works perfectly? I think CJ has the same problem. Answers on a post card, please, to….
Right. I’m resolved. I shall now do some blog posts.
By the way. In case any of this sounded like a complaint please let me assure you that I’ve enjoyed every minute of the last 71 1/2 hours since I arrived back on the Island.
And, by the way, there are still some more posts to come on A Hebridean in New Zealand so please don’t abandon it yet.
