Frosted Orange

 

This splendid Moth, a Frosted Orange, turned up on our balcony last week - a new guest for our Moth Hotel.  I haven't yet managed to find a way to wind him/her into this blog, but there is still time to do so.  

A fb friend posted a dream they had, a dream full of anxious wondering about her brother - why had nobody heard from him, why had nobody contacted him, where was he living?  Only of course to wake up into the world in which he died very young, many years ago.

We do not forget the loss of those we love, as it is a loss that should never have happened. And it reminded me of a dream I had many years ago about my granny, whose rambling cottage and garden was our childhood paradise.

In my dream I found myself back in Nabbs Cottage, knowing that I had not been there for many years, and knowing too that my granny had been dead for many years.  But when I went through to the back kitchen, there she was, making herself a cup of tea.

I saw her as middle-aged in my dream. as she would have been when I first knew her. I asked her why she was there, what she was doing.  She said, sadly and matter-of-factly, that she couldn't think of anywhere else to go after her funeral.

Of course, I do hope to see her again, in the restored earthly paradise... time will tell if me and my gran will be there. 

Saturday was my appointment for what I had thought was for one procedure but turned out to be for another altogether.  The doctor who saw me was as puzzled as I was, as I did not have the worrying symptom that had apparently been ticked by my GP on her list.  I have a strange feeling that somewhere else in the quiet Saturday hospital was another puzzled patient wondering why she was being offered treatment for a symptom she did not have, she having been allocated MY symptom, me having been allocated HERS.

It is all too much of a puzzle, and meant I had to undergo a second - seemingly pointless -  painful (and undignified) examination.  I will wait for my GP to contact me when she gets the report from the hospital and hope that she can sort it all out. I know how relentlessly busy GPs are, and how easily, under those circumstances, a wrong box can be ticked.

What is sad is that as I was given an all-clear, I should be feeling both gratitude and relief. And of course I am relieved. But I had already got my all-clear as far as this was concerned... well I thought I had.  Anyway, if I am getting too much medical attention rather then too little, I ought not to complain about it.

Frosted Orange... still no clever way of weaving this little creature into the fabric of my blog has come to me, so I'll just let it sit there, telling us of the beauty and complexity of the creation.  And I hope it will help me to keep firmly in mind that the Creator, Jehovah, who can make this exquisite creature as well as a universe so immense, so awe-inspiring we cannot get our heads round it, is more than capable of restoring the whole earth to paradise, and us, the children of Adam, to the life and perfection our first parents lost.

OUCH! (or The Not So Little Mermaid)

The flare up continues - both feet - zimmering painfully around - dreading my arms, hands and shoulders joining in.   On Wednesday morning, the pain was so bad in my right foot, but at least the left foot was back on line. 

You will remember Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid, who when she got her human feet found they were as painful to walk on as sharp knives.  So for me this week, think: Little Mermaid, only an older, fatter version, with none of the fairytale glamour.

Actually it is such a sad story in so many ways, if I am remembering it right, all predicated on the idea that we were all brought up with (in Christendom), that we have an "immortal soul".  In the story, mermaids do not, and so the poor mermaid princess pays a terrible price for trying to obtain one.

Yet the idea of the immortal soul is NOT a Christian teaching - the Bible tells us simply and clearly that we ARE souls, and we can and do die.  When God breathed life into our first parents, they became living souls.  But from the moment they made that tragic decision to cut themselves off from their Creator, their Source of life, they became dying souls. And they did eventually die and return to the dust of the ground from which they were created.

That is our tragedy.  We, who should all have been born of perfect, living parents, are all born of imperfect dying ones - through no fault of our own. So we are imperfect and dying from the moment we are born. The poor little mermaid had no need to envy our condition, nor replace her comfortable tail with painful feet.

The photo above was taken by Captain B.  It is a Mermaid's Purse - the nearest thing we have seen so far to a mermaid on our local beach.

Anyway, my mind was taken off my pain and self-pity by a visit from two friends. We had tea, cakes (marmalade muffins), a nice chat, and did some work together, we shared ideas.  And I had my usual double Zoom session with another friend in the afternoon, all of which really really helped.

Once again I ask myself, where would I be now, what state would I be in, if I had not talked to those two lovely Jehovah's Witnesses who called at my door in my Northern hometown all those years ago?

We are offering free home bible courses to all who will accept one... Jehovah, the God of all comfort will help and sustain all who will come to Him.

Left foot still very painful this morning, so I will be attending the meeting tonight in Zoom. I need to try to get it right as I have a hospital appointment, following on the two scans, coming up that I need to attend.

Cobalt Crust, Continuing Flare-up, and Emily

We picked one of Col's Cobalt Crust photos for September in our 2024 calendar, which is fungi based.  I am starting to wonder what the 2025 calendar should be about, if we are going to do one. This kind of fungus reminds me of the underwater world with its amazing, colourful sponges - also much photographed by Captain B.

Maybe a Sponge Calendar?

The balcony was wonderful on Sunday morning before the meeting.  Lots of cloud, very dark on the horizon over the sea, but with the sun coming through above, and shining on the geraniums and me.  I hope that one day I will be able to thank Jehovah for all this from a perfect heart. I hope we all will.

I had to Zoom to the meeting and appear in Pixel form as my right knee was too painful to walk or drive.  And by Monday morning - now - I am in such pain - left foot, right leg, that I have had to cancel my morning appointment with the Clinic for a mysterious jab they want me to have.

The siblings and I had our usual Zoom session - all seems well and we had a lovely chat.  And four more of my books have been bought!  That is good news for a non-best seller like me.

It is a greyish sort of day, not cold, the sort of day I love. apparently being the only person in the world who does not want blazing sunshine every day.  It seems a cruel irony that i spent 25 years living in the desert, given that there are many people out there who would have really appreciated the desert climate.

I am now going to have to correct an earlier opinion about my being the only one who does not love constant sunshine, as I have just found this poem by Emily Bronte:

Fall, Leaves, Fall

Emily Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/poems-poetry-about-for-autumn-keats-frost-classic

I hope she means it.  Maybe I will be able to ask her one day, if we both "inherit the earth", and live forever upon it.

Still Waiting for Gordo

A fb friend from Oz asked me how the book sales are going. The answer is that I am still waiting for Waiting for Gordo to become a bestseller. Which made me think I ought to try for a bit more publicity, hence the photo of the great cover they gave me for Gordo. If my publisher were big enough and rich enough to get his books into the airport bookshops that cover would sell it like hot cakes.

I have a lovely review in a dive magazine from someone who bought it to take on a dive holiday, thinking it was a book about diving. It isn't. And in his review he warned people about that, but he also said that once he started it, the book got to him and he had to finish it. And that is exactly what I aim for in all my books, to keep the reader wanting to turn the page, to immerse them in the world of the book.

The book wasn’t long enough to divert me from diving for too long, but my vaguely unreal paradise surroundings did match the atmosphere of the book nicely, and the story has an unsettling dream-like quality that gets to you.
The plot might seen quite slight, but there are hidden depths there.

https://divernet.com/scuba-diving/waiting-for-gordo-by-sue-knight/

I did work to try to convey the beauty of the Maldivian islands - while making it clear that the serpent is still in charge of the paradise garden, without any overt preaching. And without being boring! So I am very grateful for that review.

However I am not in the airport bookshops and I remain a non-best seller, but am continually grateful to be published at all. And to have some reviews - a few, but positive.

Well, it is now September so where has this year gone to? And I love Autumn by the way, my favourite season of all. It rained all day on Thursday, and the weather caused Captain B to leave The Field early! He then kindly volunteered to drive me to the meeting at the Kingdom Hall. If he hadn't, I would have attended via Zoom, as my foot while at lot better, was not up to driving.

This morning though I paid for my hobbling and zimmering of the last two days. As I tried to leap nimbly out of bed - well, when I say nimbly I mean creaking slowly and painfully - I found that my right knee had pretty much seized up. I slept well though, which I badly needed after the last two nights.

The News continues to be terrible, and I do realise this makes the Kingdom preaching work ever more urgent.

Here is the inspired definition of love, from 1 Corinthians 13: Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous. It does not brag, does not get puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury. It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails. 

Suppose everyone in the world was at least trying to do their imperfect best to live up to those standards...

Pioneers - and Underwings

This splendid Clifden Nonpareil spent Saturday night in our moth hotel.  It is also known as the Blue Underwing - Captain Butterfly's photos demonstrate that well.  It is very large. You would not necessarily want to meet it down a back alley on a dark Saturday night... unless you were sure it was in a good mood.  We have had a lot of moths recently, and if anyone doubts there is a Grand Creator, please look at your local moths, the strength, the delicacy, the engineering, the artistry.

After some thought and prayer I have signed up as an auxiliary pioneer for September, which means I have to do a 15 hour minimum of the preaching work. As I can no longer go door to door - I can barely go room to room some days - I checked that there are plenty of flats available for me to write to.

And I usually try to keep a count so that I know I am roughly on the 15 hours anyway - which seems shamefully little seeing as how I am retired. But I am also so tired and sleeping so badly that everything seems such an effort. Hopefully this will kick start me a bit.

We are offering a Bible study to everyone we can contact.  I hope never ever to forget how wonderful it was to find out what the Bible really says (as opposed to what I was told it said) - and I so much want to share that knowledge.

There was a ton of activity on the Green over the weekend - people setting up football pitches, bbqs, a giant family picnic going on all afternoons, and awnings - as if people were making the last of the Summer.  I guess the schools went back on Monday...  and all these years later I can still remember that sick feeling of fear as the first day of the new school year arrived.  It is sad that many children may have been feeling that way yesterday.

Monday morning - back to school day for so many - was overcast but warm and the Channel was calm.  The day started, as so many of days in late retirement do, with one of us (Captain B in this case), trying to make a phone call to the doctor. In the end, he gave up and went up to the surgery himself - it is not far - and all is in hand.

And today starts with me having a medical appointment in the morning... mercifully it is by phone, to get the results of my scans. I say mercifully as my right foot has taken its turn to flare up and it is v.painful and, obviously, making it difficult to do even my usual hobble round the flat.

Things do not seem as bad as I feared scanwise, but I am being referred to two different hospital departments, just to make sure.  Col also had a medical appointment.  Poor old NHS, we are really using up a lot of its time.