Clive John Edwards

It is with great sadness that I am telling you that Blogland has lost one of its earliest members who was known to some of my longer-term readers of this blog.

CJ, otherwise known as Scriptor Senex, my younger brother died peacefully in hospital last night having had a massive stroke earlier in the week.

CJ started started blogging over 20 years ago on a subject dear to his heart: insects and wildlife mainly in his garden.  The original blog, which unfortunately I have been unable to locate, was on Angelfire. 

Then on the 15 August 2007 he changed to Blogger and started the blog Rambles from my Chair. He also had various other blogs over the years.

More recently a message on his blog made it clear that he was using Instagram and Facebook a lot more  and sometimes they were replacing posts on the blog. In reality his poor health meant that in recent years he spent most of his time reading. He was one of the most voracious readers I've known. He had the advantage of being able to concentrate absolutely and speed read but also remember what he had read.

I owe my blogging career to CJ who introduced me to Blogger in its infancy in 2007.

Being 'Single'.

"It's okay for you there's only one of you to look after." is a statement I hear quite frequently from married people.

WHAT!  For some reason when I heard it yesterday it really irritated me. 

I live in a 100 year old 'family' house. There's only me to clean it and do the maintenance. I have a large garden. There's only me to work in it and maintain it. I eat meals with the usual regularity of two people. There is only me to do the cooking. The difference is simply the quantity I cook. I do all the shopping. 

When I go somewhere there's only me to do the driving. There's no "I'll drive tonight so you can have a glass of wine". When I go away I have to pay for double accommodation or a substantial 'single supplement'. 

If I get 'flu or break a leg then there's just me to look after me. 

On the plus side there's only one of me to consider if I happen to want to watch the television or radio.  😂

Dread

Over the next next four or five months I will have to go to The Mainland on three occasions at least. For my annual CT scan combined with my 3-monthly cancer review at The Beatson (the West of Scotland's cancer centre of excellence in Glasgow). Then, possibly April, to have my uretic stent replaced.  In June there is a wedding in Edinburgh for one of my New Zealand Family. Immediately after which four members of The Family are coming to stay on Lewis. 

All of a sudden I am grabbed by a feeling of dread at the idea of leaving the Island. 

Why?

I don't mind driving (and I have a large comfortable reliable estate car in which to do it). I don't mind the ferry journey from Stornoway to Ullapool (It's only 2½ hours and I'm a good sailor and down the mainland sealoch the scenery is beautiful). If I fly, instead, I am very happy in airplanes despite a loathing of airports these days. And when I'm in Glasgow and other places I have friends with whom to stay and enjoy time.   

So what has happened to me?

After all It's not that many years since I 'commuted' between my home here on Lewis and my home in New Zealand. I did that journey for a decade until I returned to Scotland for good in 2017 when I was basically told that they couldn't really look after my cancer (which had shown signs of returning) if I insisted on being away for 6 months of the year. In any case life was altering in many ways. So Scotland had to become my full-time home once more.

Since then my summer trips to Europe became fewer and ceased when I was refused medical insurance.

Then, gradually, my visits to England became fewer and stopped with Covid and have not resumed.

I'm very happy driving on the Mainland of Scotland - after all it is a stunningly beautiful Country. I have to admit though, that having to meet ferry deadlines and wait a week for a booking in summer if one misses the ferry because of hospital or a road accident (both of which affected me last year) have taken the joy out of summer travel. Ferry cancellations because of weather, which I managed to avoid for 46 years, now loom large frequently.

And I love my home, My family,  my friends, my garden and and........

Am I alone? Is it an age 'thing'? 

Ah well. I suppose I'd better do the ironing.

My Diary

Jabblog on the subject of her new diary recently said, amongst other things, "When I was a teenager, it took me ages to write a letter because I had to keep starting again after I’d made a mistake. Quite ridiculous!"

I read that at the time that I was filling in my 2024 pocket diary. Without it I am absolutely lost. Like Janice I start off trying to be very orderly and neat. It is helped in my case by the fact that I only use pencil for appointments. However birthdays and other dates are in fine red ink so as to stand out. I cannot understand how it is that half way through the year I will have a few entries that are a day out because I copy across from the old diary without concentrating. I find it irrationally annoying.

I have been using the same diary format which fits into a leather cover for many many years. I am used to it. It is a sort of comfort blanket. On the odd occasion that I have mislaid my diary over the years (I have always eventually found it) I nearly have a nervous breakdown. My diary, like my car keys, carry a reasonable reward for its return if lost.

Given that almost everything else I do I do on my iPhone and associated MacBookPro and iPad (which Apple users will understand because everything done on one is automatically available on the others and is instantly backed up in the Cloud) I cannot understand why I don't do the same for my diary. 

However my diaries go back continuously to 1974 well before I had any form of electronic recording device.

Returning to Janice's original point I write a lot of letters using a fountain pen. I have been known to start again because of an error. However a few years ago I decided that this was causing me to lose spontaneity and all of a sudden the occasional crossing out almost became the norm. It certainly doesn't worry me any more. 

Greetings

To those of my friends in the Blogworld and elsewhere I send you greetings for 2024.

I hope that you are all well. I apologise for yet another absence. On this occasion I may have some difficulty catching up with all the posts I've missed to the extent that I hope to read but may not comment.

For the last two Christmases and Januaries I have been ill with chest infections or viruses. This year I have so far been absolutely hale and hearty.

However prior to Christmas my son was unwell with what we now assume was influenza. My son and daughter-in-law host Christmas for the two families because they have a house and dining area which can take us all with ease.  The 22nd December was my grandson, Brodie's, 6th Birthday.  He had a get-together. Two days later on Christmas Eve he found himself for the second time in three weeks in hospital. The first time he had needed intra-venous antibiotics so was an in-patient. This time the tests showed that he had 'flu. As there was nothing to be done needing hospital treatment he was allowed home. 

However Christmas lunch was postponed. 

In any case his maternal aunt and grandfather had both succumbed. 

As it happens a friend of mine of half a century also had her Christmas cancelled so she came over to me for a couple of days bringing duck (instead of turkey) and excellent Champagne. So we settled ourselves down and had a couple of very quiet and very overindulgent days.

I hastily got out my Christmas Candles and cards and my Christmas Trees made by Catriona of my New Zealand Family when she was about the age of my Grandson which adorned my home in New Zealand. Instead of using one of the dining tables we used the 'dinner wagon' given to my parents on their marriage nearly ninety years ago. Together with the huge snowflakes crocheted by Marcheline.