Conversation with the 'ex'

RING RING - RING RING

"hello?"

"I'm at your house, and the lights are off. Where are you?"

"Oh we're here, sitting inside with the lights off"

SILENCE

"We often to that, just incase people come by unexpectedly. Hang on and I'll come to the door"

SILENCE

SILENCE

SILENCE

"Aye are you coming or not?"

SILENCE

"You're nae even at hame are ya?"

"And that Sir, is the reason why I feel so safe at home. Knowing your calibre of policemen are patrolling my neighbourhood"


~BRRRR~

Status - Single

Why do all the single people I encounter automatically assume that because I'm single too that I'm looking for a lover. Then find it hard to accept that because they are available they are a candidate for this fabricated position in my life? Why do past lovers assume that I hanker after them long after the dust has settled and imagine I'll welcome them with open arms and gratitude for their renewed attentions? Words fail me when faced with this level of arrogance, but Carol Ann Duffy sums it up beautifully...

To the Unknown Lover

Horrifying, the very thought of you
whoever you are,
future knife to my scar,
stay where you are.

Be handsome, beautiful, drop-dead
gorgeous, keep away.
Read my lips.
No way. OK?

This old heart of mine's
an empty purse.
These ears are closed.
Don't phone, want dinner,

make things worse.
Your little quirks?
Your wee endearing ways?
What makes you you, all that?

Stuff it, mount it, hang it
on the wall, sell tickets,
I won't come. Get back. Get lost.
Get real. Get a life. Keep schtum.

And just, you must, remember this -
there'll be no kiss, no clinch,
no smoochy dance, no true romance.
You are Anonymous. You're Who?

Here's not looking, kid, at you.

Ninja Invasion

Imagine it ... 6 am on a bitterly cold morning. It's dark outside and my bedroom is silent as a sleep. The house is occasionally groaning from the pressure of -15 outside and full boar heating on the inside. I'm roused from my sleep and still in that blissful half aware state i need a small scrambling noise coming from the loft. Distant but distinct. This is all part of country life and nothing worth losing sleep over. I remind myself to set the table for unwelcome guests and half wonder where the mousetraps are before dosing back into a semi sleep.

Seconds? Minutes later I'm shaken back out of my snooze with a louder, closer scraping noise. This isn't the usual mouse feet scurrying and my ears registers it before I'm fully awake and by the time I've caught up with my ears my brain has me sitting up in bed. It's dark in the room and my eyes haven't adjusted to the gloom so my only useful sense (my ears) are on high alert.

The scraping is right at the loft hatch, which from memory isn't closed properly. I 'ahem' loudly hoping to scare the intruder away from the entrance, but not only does it ignore my polite entreaty but it starts to dig the wood with its nails. My brain has now upgraded the little field mouse to a rat... a huge one at that. I can hear the joists on one side of the doorway being chewed and clawed and listening with growing horror I realise how very unprepared i've come to bed. I have a bottle of water and my phone with me.

I flick the phone into life and a tiny beam of light floods the darkness around me. Great... now the rat can see where to find me! My phone is locked and the light flicks off after 3 seconds. Logically, I know my phone light will stay on much longer if I unlock it but in my growing panic that idea doesn't even occur to me.. So i start a ridiculous round of pressing and point my phone towards the back of the bedroom.

Far from being discouraged by my exaggerated noises and woefully pathetic phone light, the rat rallies it's efforts and the clawing seems to be reaching a frantic pace. The phone has so small a light and the room is so dark that it's beam doesn't cast enough light to see far.

I'm not a great fan of horror films and every time I watch them I get frustrated by characters who go tip toeing towards strange noises or unexplained lights... it's utterly illogical surely. But here I am, gingerly getting out of bed armed with my mobile phone, which continues to abandon me every 3 seconds edging towards the back of my bedroom.

I imagine I can feel the warmth of the invader, even tho' the scrapping has momentarily stopped. The suspense is palpable and my heart is literally in my mouth. Little mice don't scare me, but large vicious rats are a different story. I've no idea what I'll do if it runs into the room but I feel compelled to investigate. My brain isn't listening to my survival voice shouting 'runaway! runaway!'

I flick my phone for the umpteenth time and the light finally falls onto the scene of the crime at the exact same time as there is a renewed effort on the house beams. I can see what's happened the opening is open but a box has fallen down to cover the bottom half of the doorway. I hold the phone higher to get some illumination into the loft space and there staring back at me are two huge eyes reflecting the phone lights!

That's too big to be a rat! I'm about to run when I hear for the first time a tiny apologetic 'meow'. It's a cat! Two steps and I'm at the entrance and there clinging on a joist by all four claws like a koala bear is my black cat 'Monty'!! He has a look on his face looks surprised to see me... like 'oh hello, your awake too huh?'.




I grab him unceremoniously by the scruff of his neck and pull him out the loft. He hot tails it out the bedroom and down to the kitchen with me in close pursuit. I imagine he's as frightened as I am angry by the time I catch up with him.... but no no... he's jauntily milling around the kitchen cupboard which houses his food, all hightailed and prancing. He stretches all pleased with himself and the thought of a bite of breakfast now I'm here.

Love Hurts

The holidays are definitely over, my oldest goes back to uni tomorrow and helping him pack the disparate content of his bedroom floor into one tiny suitcase, made way for a very puzzling conversation. I asked if he is ready for his own space again, to see his friends and to get back into a routine of being awake during daylight hours.

He nodded seriously and said 'Yeah, I'm looking forward to the peace. You talk so much I don't think anyone would believe how much that is. You never shut up 'cos even when you're not talking you're singing... stupid random words and lines from different songs all mushed up together. You're SOOOO annoying'.

I smiled and nodded along with him. No point denying the truth, I simply added, 'You know you'll miss me', and we both started to grin. It's an old joke between us from a time last year when he foolishly admitted that when he's spending time with his dad he misses my company. Now when I'm persistently repetitive and relentlessly irritating him on purpose and he's on the verge of anger we have a natural break for any tension - I just have to say 'This is why you miss me, right' and we both erupt into laughter. The older he gets the more sophisticated his replies, most memorably 'You're walking evidence of care in the community and you have the brain capacity of a squashed apricot'.

It's such a wonderful feeling to know that I've played a part in raising such a confident, witty chap, who despite finding me 'annoying' also tells me I'm the funniest, creative and most spontaneous person he knows. I miss him more than I will ever tell him and each time he leaves I'm reminded that my time with my boys was only borrowed.

Illuminating dark

Just back from a wandering in the nearest village. I think red was the last colour to go, after dark I mean. I don't know if it was the hue from the orange street lights or the red sky at night or even the colour of the cars passing me by, but it looked like one particularly vibrant shade of red (ultra-red) was definitely the last to go.

But no, I think red is the last colour to go, there. I can't remember noticing this before, so I think it's only there. Or mebbe it's not only there, but here it's noticeable, unlike say green or blue. Noticing nightfall reminded me of dusk in Sri Lanka. Less of a dusk and more of a curtain fall. I'd pop back into the hotel room for a bottle of water and walk immediately back outside to find it pitch black. Definitely no last colours there, just dark.

Actually now I think it about it more, when I refer to 'after dark', it wasn't dark. There were streetlights blinking at me, slithers of energy-efficient window lights struggle to shine further than the room in which they hung. There were car headlights, tail lights, star lights and moon light. After dark is turning out to be a bit of an illusion. It's been snowy and pavements were filled with inky puddles and mysterious dark objects and shapes. Pavement reflections worry me because I can't see what I'm stepping in.

Then I drive home and on the farm is it unquestionably after dark. Night time here makes it easier for me to look up, which is really only half a head bob from forgetting to look down. It's so dark here that there's a feeling of surrender given to the black. With nothing but a smattering of starlight and a small slice of moonlight it's easy to see the light. I think this is what is meant by 'illumination'.

There's no appeal like SNOW appeal!

Coming home late tonight I was driving through yet another snow storm. Nothing too serious but enough to be covering the road. It wasn't unexpected as snowfalls and blizzards have been a hot (but chilly)topic on my favourite radio station for a couple of days.

Having been snowed in at home for a sum total of 18 days (not all consecutive days) I can say without a shadow of a doubt I'm sick of snow. However, what I'm not fed up with is the increasingly creative ways newscasters and weather forecasters have been trying to report on the same thing without saying the same thing.

Yesterday one radio announcer warned us that we should brace ourselves in the North East for another wintry weather front approaching from the chilly North bringing with it a band of organised snow. Today a different radio station reported that some parts of Aberdeenshire were experiencing a keen flurry of snowfall. The increasing personification of the weather cushions the news that more snow is scheduled to come our way in such a way that it's hard not to look forward to hearing these reports.

Once safely home, the snow had died down and the skies had cleared and I stood looking up at the stars. The sheer volume of them that are visible with the naked eye always takes my breath away. As I watched a few individual snowflakes drifted from the rooftop, I wondered - as mind boggling as the number of stars I could see was the thought that in all the annoying feet of snow I've seen just over the last few weeks is the fact that no two individual snowflakes are the same. Incomprehensible and incalculable, so perhaps Christmas miracles are all around us but we just don't take the time to recognise them.

The Great British blame blindness

I’ve been a single parent for the last 7 years, enduring the burden of being a stereotypical siphon on the financial purse strings of the Great British Taxpayer for as long. You could say I’m a veteran scapegoat. After watching The Great British Waste Menu aired on 18 August on BBC one, I quit.

Usually, I’m too busy earning money to pay for my stake in this Great British Nation to register any flush of indignation I feel when noticing Britain’s transition from a democratic to an irony state.

My stiff upper life is under threat of curling like a rejected lettuce leaf. Don’t get me wrong the concept of the programme was interesting, in that it highlighted the problem of food wastage in the UK and I find this in its self laudable. However, the tone of the programme and commentaries reeked like the rubbish bins the chefs rooted through. The inference that the Great British Public has too high consumer expectations has loosened my tight lips.

I am by no means oblivious to our privileged lifestyle, but frankly I refuse to feel guilty for my individual actions when there are larger issues at play which slip under the radar of media scrutiny. It surely can’t be just me that is finding it increasingly difficult to belly down the satirical pie being served up with a garnish of our own naive misconceptions.

I watched the four competing chefs peddle the idea that food saving and therefore waste reduction could easily be done, if only the public just tried a little harder. As the credits rolled, my guilt struck. How silly I thought, if only I had thought of it before being shamed by this TV programme.

I’d have surely jumped into my refrigerated van, filled with fuel for which I’ve happily paid 60% tax, in order that I might spend a day away from my usual employment to spread, essential fossil fuel emissions around the countryside to foraging for free or cheap salvaged seasonal ingredient (all sprayed liberally with no choice, free with every purchase pesticides and chemicals), to rustle up a gastronomic delight that has to be prepared and eaten that same day, without the aid of high-tech food safety checking equipment so that my family can bask in the self righteousness of our new frugal lifestyle - all the while ignoring the fuel consumption, flagrant overuse of my road tax allocation and wage less day sacrificed as homage to the ideology.

On second thoughts, perhaps I’ll take the bus next time. Paying excessive ticket prices for a poor public service which doesn’t seem to offer me any discount, reflecting the fact that I’ve subsided the service with my non-voluntary taxes. Travelling routes prescribed by a commercial company reporting annual profits higher than my own annual pay increase this year, in the vain hope that it happens to run past food scavenge venues more than once a day.

It’s hard not resorting to bitter ranting and pointing my own ironic finger when I thinking about how much the public in Britain is expected to keep giving and saving and how little they complain about those expectations.

It is increasingly hard for the average Joe to slow down long enough to think about the irony behind these cultural expectations. Take the bucket emptying tax (otherwise known as the Council tax). The average household pays £100 per month to have their rubbish bins collected? I say rubbish bins because I am reminded by my bin collectors that ‘if it ain’t in the bin, it ain’t getting taken away’. So I pay £50 per visit to have as much refuse as I can squeeze into a wheelie bin removed. On top of this I am expected to separate my own waste before even putting it into the wheelie bin to save the environment. This means that I do half the work and still pay. Rumour has it, that some Local Authorities around Britain just dump the lovingly collected recycled waste into the same landfill as the non-recyclable waste. The irony doesn’t stop there because based on my own local authority it’s cheaper to have a large piece of household waste removed. I can have up to two items removed for £35. Bargain! All I need is two massive rubbish containers retailing for less than a fiver; an opening for some dragons den investment perhaps?

What irks me the most about the whole ‘waste’ issue is my lack of options in the matter. As a consumer I have little choice in the volume and nature of packaging that comes with my shopping. The cost of which is factored into the overall price I pay for the goods. So I have no choice but to pay once because it comes attached to my produce and then I pay again to have the packaging removed from my house. And if I don’t separate it out for recycling I’m made to feel guilty for not being responsible, when manufacturers and retailers refuse to take any responsibility and the same government that pays lip service to environmental issues does nothing to share out accountability.

The most entertaining part of the programme was that the producers had invited representatives from Supermarkets to dine. The pointlessness of which made me laugh. Everyone knows that Supermarket are rip offs with more spin than the major political parties. There was a quiet suggestions they introduce an ‘eat today section’. Surely anyone with any business acumen knows this would be consumer genocide. Retailers know that cash strapped shoppers previously forced through lack of choice to purchase a tray of juicy tomatoes (presented in a free plastic tray) at the normal retail price would obviously opt to buy from the cheaper ‘eat today’ selection. The result of this frugal move would mean they’d actively be pouring profits down the drain instead of putting it in the bin.

Where else can supermarket spin be seen clearer than the concept of BOGOF and BOGOHP? Knowing that supermarkets are in the business of making money it is therefore obvious that this is not an altruistic money loss idea. The price advertised for one item (with another free or half price) is inflated to cover the actual cost of two items – consumer spends more money than they intended and the supermarket makes a modest profit. Should a cash strapped consumer opt to just buy the one they need without the other at half price and the supermarket makes significant profit at the expense of British people who can least afford it. So how come more people aren’t saying Bog-off to the supermarket hype?
It’s not just the cash strapped shopper that’s being ripped off. Money matters to us all and most of us are responsible with our cash. I know my conscious is clear in terms of the economic climate. Each year I earn a little more, I am taxed both directly and indirectly more, I am spending more and as the programme just pointed out I’m wasting more. So I’m left with the question – how come I have to pay 20% tax next year? I didn’t do anything wrong. I know, I know what you’re thinking. I’ve read the papers, sifted through the newspapers (all with extra supplements full of adverts that companies have paid to produce that I have to pay £50 per visit to be uplifted) but it doesn’t negate the facts that bad poor business management by inept fat cats has gotten us where we are today.

With the legislative calls for equality and in the interest of fairness I feel that it is somewhat unfair that if I get into debt, I should be expected to pay it back myself. There ought to be an opportunity for me to present my case to the local authority claiming that if they don’t help me sort out my debt then they will suffer as I shall not be able to pay my council bin emptying tax which will mean less locally derived income. Or I might appeal to the government, pointing out that my debt is really just a single person’s portion of the country’s overall debt and not really just mine. By rights I should be able to claim the same financial support that our country’s financial institute have been offered. After all I was only doing my duty in spending the country out of recession why should I be penalised for not being very good at it. It’s not like I’ve been adequately trained for the job.
It is quite obvious that my debt is really part of the whole country’s deficit and should therefore be absorbed back into the main debt figure to be paid by those people too apathetical to notice or care. And in the continued spirit of equal treatment and because of my mis-management of my national debt allocation I should probably be ‘let go’ with a comparable handsome financial gratuity awarded to those money mis-managers before me and never expected to contribute to the financial well-being of this Great Nation again.

Upon which I will then begrudgingly castigate myself from society and henceforth live the alternative life style adopted by many travelling people. Rooting, hunting and foraging for seasonal produce whilst enduring the media reported distain at having quit.