Silver Foxes

  

At the moment I am getting lots of Friendship Requests on my Facebook page.  They all seem - SEEM - to be from men of "a certain age", all handsome, with silvery hair, and all widowed.  They are called "silver foxes" I believe.  I always feel like accepting them as friends, and suggesting that we meet up on the next Dr.Phil episode about Catfishing.

But I don't.  I just ignore them, and would advise anyone else to do the same.  Sadly many people have not and have lost thousands of dollars to these scams - hundreds of thousands sometimes! - scams of which the men in the photographs are innocent, most not even knowing their pictures are being used in this way.

The fox in the photo above - a red one, not a silver one -is innocent too. It is one of our foxes that Captain B photographed.  They come and they go and occasionally raise their children in our quiet gardens. They make the best of the ruined paradise we all have to live in until God's Kingdom comes - even though they are completely innocent of what has gone wrong.

This is the week for our flu vax and our next Covid vax... hopefully our bodies and immune systems will cope.  But, oh dear... we have more medical stuff coming up - and I know we are grateful for it. But I long for the time we all have perfect health, which is something we - the damaged, dying children of disobedient Adam - have never yet known.

Talking of medical issues, we saw George at our family Zoom on Monday - he popped in briefly to say hello having just come back from his first cataract operation. All has gone well apparently, and the second one is scheduled quite quickly.

I remember Jean telling me that her cataract operation gave her back the world of vivid colour she did not realise she had lost.  

I have cataracts coming - we all will, in our current damaged state, if we live long enough - and, IF I live long enough will have to have them operated on at some stage.

Can't say that I look forward to it.  But I am grateful that we still have a National Health Service to do it.

 

A Work of Art

Here is yet another perfect work of art from our Grand Creator, Jehovah, in the shape of a recent sunrise, photographed by Captain Moth-Butterfly.

By some accident I inserted the photo into the text, and as it looks quite interesting that way, I thought I would leave it there.  In any case, I have no idea how to get it out again.  

I hope that we will see unnumbered sunrises and sunsets in the restored earthly paradise.  

We shopped early on Friday morning as, due to poor ordering, I had run out of paracetamol and onions... I seem to live on paracetamol these days... and we bumped into Cousin Elizabeth, which was a nice surprise. Plus the gal who sells The Big Issue was there, so we bought one.  

This month is fairly hurtling along. And can it really be a year since the last bonfire on The Green?  If so, these years are definitely getting shorter.  

And with the bonfire comes The Fair, so I have been looking at the English Channel through a Ferris Wheel, the Jungle Kingdom, and the Ghost Train - all were lit up on mid Saturday afternoon and spinning away.  They looked very pretty in the late afternoon sun.

Re the Ghost Train, a popular fairground attraction, it is disturbing how this idea that the dead are living elsewhere, and that we must fear them, or fear for them, persists, when the Bible tells us simply and clearly, as it always has, that the dead "are conscious of nothing at all". - Ecclesiastes 9:5

We need neither fear them, or fear for them, but we can accept the Biblical hope that we can see them again once the time comes for the resurrection, and Jehovah wakes them from the dreamless sleep of death.

The clocks went back on Saturday night and in the very early dark dawn on Sunday morning, the bonfire was still blazing away on the Green, sending clouds of smoke towards the rising sun.

And on Monday morning it is still burning, with large flames. It is a very Mother of All Bonfires bonfire.  Will there be one next year? Will we be here to see it if so?

It is the question that one has to keep asking, in old age.  I do want us to be of course. I want us to live forever on this beautiful planet - in paradise.

Bouquet!

 

This splendid bouquet of Autumn flowers arrived on Monday morning while I was in my usual Zoom session with my siblings.  It was from Alex and Nadine to thank us for taking care of Nute in the wake of her operation.

It was a lovely surprise.  

Monday and Tuesday was an ongoing struggle to work out what blood pressure meds we are both supposed to be on. Either we are confused, the GPs are confused - or as seems more than likely, a bit of both. They are over-worked, and we are, well, youthily-challenged (in case the Thought Police have banned the word "old" and I haven't noticed).

We both still have colds, but are getting back into our routine slowly.  The bonfire is being built on The Green in readiness for Saturday night.  And I am happy to know that I am not the only one who loves Autumn.  See John Clare, below:

Autumn

John Clare

I love the fitfull gusts that shakes
 The casement all the day
And from the mossy elm tree takes
 The faded leaf away
Twirling it by the window-pane
With thousand others down the lane

I love to see the shaking twig
 Dance till the shut of eve
The sparrow on the cottage rig
 Whose chirp would make believe
That spring was just now flirting by
In summers lap with flowers to lie

I love to see the cottage smoke
 Curl upwards through the naked trees
The pigeons nestled round the coat
 On dull November days like these
The cock upon the dung-hill crowing
The mill sails on the heath a-going

The feather from the ravens breast
 Falls on the stubble lea
The acorns near the old crows nest
 Fall pattering down the tree
The grunting pigs that wait for all
Scramble and hurry where they fall

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

I hope that when the time comes, Jehovah will wake the poet from the dreamless sleep of death and he will see this lovely earth again. Maybe John Clare will wake up in the full splendour of Autumn - an Autumn in paradise.  

The bonfire is now built, and enormous, and the fairground is set  up on The Green - I am looking at the sea through a ferris wheel today.  I hope they have a good weekend weatherwise. If so, the fair will be roaring away outside our windows tomorrow night, as fireworks explode.  What the gulls make of it all I don't know.  But quite possibly when they see the bonfire being built they know they are in for a noisy night.

The Bluebottle Bomb, The Badgers, The Fox, and the Invisible Cats

 

Nute has often spoken about the horrors of the Bluebottle Bomb on Facebook. And if anyone thinks she is exaggerating they need to pop round and try experiencing one!  We started out kindly and ecologically trying to catch and free each bluebottle as it appeared, but it ended up with Col on a stepladder trying to vacuum hordes of them out of the lightwell.

The Bomb is courtesy of the invisible cats and their invisible kills - which fester away in obscure corners while being eaten by maggots and - well I find I don't want to discuss the process, useful though it undoubtedly is.

One of the Invisibles - cat, not prey - materialised on our bed every night and slept happily pressed up against our legs, staying calm through all our night excursions (trips to the loo, we are not the young things we once were).

The cat in question, Abra, also impelled me from my warm bed twice on a cold cold morning by sheer force of personality.  To save her ladyship the trouble of using the catflap in the bedroom door and walking a few steps to the catflap in the kitchen door, I got out of bed and let her out of our door, and the hall door that used to divide dog from cat in the old days.

Thankfully I got back into my warm and comfy bed only to find Abra had rematerialised in exactly the same position as before, not speaking or looking at me, just emoting. So this time I opened both doors, followed her through to the kitchen and found what the problem was. All the food dishes were empty, wiped clean.  The cats wanted their breakfast. Which I supplied.

The fox and the badgers turned up reliably for their food every night, the fox to hoover up the expensive cat food that the Invisibles had spurned during the day, and the badgers for their peanuts.

I am still wondering who, or what, emptied those cat dishes over night.  It seems completely out of character for the cats - they spurn more food than they eat.

Storm Ashley was raging on Sunday, giving us wonderful seas, waves crashing outside the window as I attended the meeting in Zoom. It was quite distracting.  I am still full of a cold, but Col's cough has abated a bit.

And in the world, wars continue, real bombs and rockets continue to rain down.  The Middle East seems to be going up in flames, war and starvation rages on in the Sudan, and the conflict in the Ukraine, which is taking such a toll on the Ukrainian and Russian peoples, continues, seemingly with no end in sight.

I hope the beauty, complexity and immensity of the creation can reassure us about the rescue that is already well underway, even the beauty of the bluebottle - see Col's photo of one that heads this blog. It is like a jewel really.

Once all creation is restored to the harmony that prevailed in Eden, we will see them for the wonderful and useful creations that they are.  And, as the Bible promises, all wars will cease.  All the divisions and hatred that leads to wars will vanish under the loving reign of the Kingdom of God, which is now so close.

Already it is teaching millions of us - from "every tribe and nation and tongue" - to live in peace as the brothers and sisters we truly are.

The Return from the North

We have been up North, assisting my sister Nute who is recovering from brain surgery.  We did not help her very much by arriving with terrible colds.  When we set off we were both fine, but by the time we arrived Col had a cold. then I got it, then Nute got it.  Poor old Col got it worst of all and has been coughing non-stop.  It has also got very cold up here which did not help him. We have got too used to the warm South and our warm second floor flat I think. Maybe it is time we moved back up North and get re-acclimatised?

Nute is recovering well, after a couple of worrying glitches. And Col has been a tower of strength - albeit a coughing sneezing tower - as always.  Whereas I feel a bit like that broken reed that Jehovah likened Egypt to when the Israelites were relying on the Pharaoh, instead of on Jehovah.

Isaiah 36:6: Look! You trust in the support of this crushed reed, Egypt, which if a man should lean on it would enter into his palm and pierce it. That is the way Pharʹaoh king of Egypt is to all those who trust in him.

So I feel a bit like that broken or crushed reed, in the sense that I wonder if people can rely on me. If I had had an flare-up while I was there, I would not have been able to do anything, and the poor cold-ridden Captain would have had two invalids on his hands.

I have tried to keep the meals coming. Which has meant making a lot of veggie soups, and making sure there is a lot of fruit to hand.   And it has also reminded me that stir fry chicken and veggies is a tasty and simple meal. I hadn't made it for ages.

We had visits from family and friends and gifts of home made soup, wonderful choccie biccies, cards and offers of help.  Captain B has taken Nute out on some supervised and SHORT walks, and Keith has offered to take over with those.  The difficulty will be stopping her doing too much too quickly.  The body has amazing powers of healing and recovery if we give it a chance to do its work.

She is not like me. She is a gym bunny, dog walker (when they had a dog), and a walker, full stop.  Mind you, I was a great  walker before the family arthritis gene stopped me in my tracks.  And she is not a smoker (not that I am either).  The surgeon said to her that, given her age, they would not have operated were she not so fit.

But three hours brain surgery is a big thing - the general anaesthetic alone is like a sledge-hammer to the brain (apparently) - and then they were actually inside her head doing various procedures. So it is no wonder she is tired.

Anyway, we are all very grateful to those two surgeons.

The photo that heads the blog is of Nute and her husband Ken - in younger days.

We arrived back down on the South Coast Thursday afternoon, after a much easier journey than our drive up North, thank goodness.  The first load of washing is done and we have shopped for the weekend. I hope to do as little as possible for a couple of days.

I have a saga to tell of The Bluebottle Bomb, the Badgers, the Fox, and the Invisible Cat.  But that will have to wait for my next blog I think

Northern Lights

My correspondence with Krysia is bringing back many memories of our mutual convent schooldays.  The Convent schoolgirl me is in the Pic above, middle row, left, next to Sheila and Rosemary, who were cousins

Sheila, alas, is no more, and Rosemary has lived in NZ for many years.

We - my siblings and me and Krysia - were in different years, but all overlapping.  They were not very happy years for any of us, but I am hoping to persuade Krysia to read Karen Armstrong's Through the Narrow Gate as it really does explain the system that formed those nuns - so cold, and so critical.

But there again, two central doctrines of Christendom are The Trinity, and the Immortality of the Soul, neither of which is a Christian teaching.  And its symbol is the cross, which is not a Christian symbol. 

So the nuns cannot have been having a happy time either.  They lived 24/7 in this cold critical atmosphere.  We had loving parents to escape to.  Of course, not all children did, sadly. But some, hopefully, were happy enough at school, negotiating the system with ease, and not letting it get to them.

These negotiations are just not possible for aspergery children as people are such a puzzle to us. And I never felt I quite understood what was going on, from Day 1 to the  Last School Day.  

Well, I bear in mind that when God gave the Law to the Israelites and organised them and their society, he did not jam children together in large peer groups to be taught.  Children were taught first and foremostly by their parents.  God is the very source of wisdom, and takes educating us very seriously indeed, so he knows just how it should be done. But Jehovah teaches us so kindly and patiently.

The Northern Lights have been appearing in Sussex!  We have not seen them yet, but I hope we will.  What a universe it is we float along in - vast beyond human comprehension, and so beautiful.

And then, when you look down, there is the detail of every Autumn leaf - each one so lovely, no two alike.  Each one a work of art.

Autumn/Winter or The Ashes of my Youth

Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold

By William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold 
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45099/sonnet-73-that-time-of-year-thou-mayst-in-me-behold


I can't say it better than Shakespeare. Obviously. To love that well which I must leave before long. Autumn is so lovely.  The death of leaves is beautiful, and its meant, part of a complex process that renews both leaf and tree. We have been doing quite a lot of driving recently through the Fall, and the loveliness of it all just lifts the heart.

I feel it ought to inspire me to a poem, but I can't even begin to do it justice.

In sharp contrast, our deaths are not beautiful, as we were not designed to die.  Our first parents were made to live forever.  My body will soon wear out, hopefully before my brain does, and I will have to leave Captain Butterfly and this lovely earth, and enter the dreamless sleep of death.  But I don't want to.

Both Col and I are down with horrible colds - him first, and then me. Unavoidable I guess, as everyone seems to have one.  At least it is not Covid, or flu.  And the weather is suddenly colder - a lot colder. It will be a cruel thing if we are in for a bad winter just as the government has taken the winter fuel allowance away.

Politics seems more devious and topsy turvy than ever, in that it was a Conservative government who gave us the fuel allowance and a Labour government who has taken it away.

Well, once again I see how much we need the heavenly government, the Kingdom of God. It is no good expecting too much of any human government, they can only do what they can do, which is so limited.

And in case this blog has been a bit too melancholy, I am still loving being alive - every day is a bonus now.  And I am loving being back in touch with Krysia. We were at the same convent school many many years ago - when Sheffield was covered with primeval forest (and convent schools).

Poor Col has just gone coughing and sneezing by, having fixed my computer for me, in some amazing way. I must go and see if I can make us both a Lemsip...

A Smuggler's Song

A Smuggler's Song (1906)
Rudyard Kipling

IF you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again - and they'll be gone next day !

If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm - don't you ask no more !

If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you " pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been !

Knocks and footsteps round the house - whistles after dark -
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by !

'If You do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood -
A present from the Gentlemen, along 'o being good !

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!

https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/a-smugglers-song

This is another poem I remember from my childhood, but I did not realise it was by Kipling until Col bought me Puck of Pook's Hill.  It is a very dramatic poem, and makes think about what a dangerous occupation smuggling was - just one person talking and you could hang - or perhaps be deported, at best.

I think I found it vividly scary.  What if you forgot, and did say something?!  And of course the Cornwall of the 1950s was not as far from those days as it is now.  I am assuming this was set in Cornwall, in the world of Jamaica Inn.  Jamaica Inn itself is a dramatic place in a dramatic setting by the way - well worth a visit, though perhaps out of the holiday/coach party season. And the book Jamaica Inn certainly does not glamourise the danger and horror of the smuggling/wrecking profession. You would indeed be scared of them. And scared for them, knowing the consequences.

What a protection Jehovah's standards of honesty are though!  If we will listen  to our Creator, we will not only have more happiness to look forward to than we can now imagine, but we will benefit ourselves so much right now. As God told us thousands of years ago, through the prophet Isaiah: 

“I, Jehovah, am your God,
The One teaching you to benefit yourself,
The One guiding you in the way you should walk.
If only you would pay attention to my commandments!
Then your peace would become just like a river
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea."

- Isaiah 48:17,18

These words are as true today as they were then, they will guide us as safely now as they did then.

Roger is continuing his travels, and he has just sent us a short video of a real steam train!  Back to childhood for all of us. I don't know exactly where the train was - somewhere in The Americas,  guess.  And he messaged to say that the little parcel I sent arrived, just in time.  Hurray.  I have emailed Bruce to say that my reply to his latest email will be couriered to his door.

Puck of Pook's Hill

Roger seems to be continuing his travels successfully, spanning continents, and I have posted a package off to him that he will pick up en route to the airport for his return flight, containing a letter for Bruce, and a card for Anne.

Col brought me Puck of Pook's Hill from the book exchange. I always hand over two for the one I take, as I am trying to shrink my bookshelves back to manageable proportions.  We only have a two bed flat.

I have never read it before, but I can see from the first chapter that it is going to teach me a lot about the history of Sussex.  It is a charming County, and the photo above is of a Sussex sunrise seen from our balcony.  The book contains some poems I have loved since childhood. 

There is this one for example:

Cities and Thrones and Powers

Rudyard Kipling

Cities and Thrones and Powers 

Stand in Time's eye, 

Almost as long as flowers, 

Which daily die: 

But, as new buds put forth

To glad new men,

Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,

The Cities rise again. 

This season's Daffodil,

She never hears 

What change, what chance, what chill,

Cut down last year's;

But with bold countenance, 

And knowledge small,

Esteems her seven days continuance

To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'er-kind

To all that be,

Ordains us e'en as blind,

As bold as she: 

That in our very death,

 And burial sure, Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,

 "See how our works endure!"

https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_cities.htm

Yes. That is such a good reminder that in Jehovah's eyes human history has lasted only a few days. We have not really even got started yet.  Our lives are so short now. And the meeting on Thursday night reminded us of this - that in God's eyes only six days have gone by since the loss of Eden.

Ever since then we have been living during the times during which "man has dominated man to his harm".  In shining contrast, Jehovah’s way of ruling is neither oppressive nor rigid. It allows for freedom and promotes joy.

Now Jehovah is the Spirit and where the spirit of Jehovah is, there is freedom. - 2 Corinthians 3:17

And living as a subject of the Kingdom of God, even now, in these difficult circumstances, I know that to be true.

While I don't always feel joyful  - not about the state of the world nor the state of my health - I do feel very grateful to be alive, and to have the hope of living forever on this lovely planet.

And Sunday morning's talk at the Hall was about the resurrection.  It makes me so happy to think that I may see my parents again if and when Jehovah wakes us from the dreamless sleep of death. That is one of the many joys Jehovah gives, right now, to all who serve him.

ENERGY and Einstein

The Captain's car is sick again.  It needs a new catalytic converter (or some such), which will take both time and money.  So he will be using my little car in the interim.

Roger came on Monday and stayed over.  He is doing another of his immense journeys seeing family and friends and taking in three continents in the process.  Amazing.  

It was lovely to see him again, and brought back so many happy memories. He is such good company.  And I also marvel at the energy he still has. He is only a year younger than me, the same age as the Captain in fact.  

They both have more energy than I do. Mind you, who doesn't these days?  However, the last Circuit Overseer talk of the week was  TIRED, BUT NOT TIRING OUT.  It was to remind us that Jehovah is the Source of energy, that he has a limitless supply of energy, and can give us energy if we will just ask.  

To give us a glimpse into what an immense Source of energy Jehovah is, the C.O. explained nuclear fission and the famous Einstein equation so simply that, for the first time ever, I understood it.

It may have  taken me over seventy years - well over - but, at last... and by the way, I put "power" into the search engine of Col's blog, the photo gallery, and came up with the above photo of Southwick Power Station.

Anyway, the C.O. explained that it takes an immense amount of energy to create even a small bit of matter - so when you reverse that, as in nuclear fission, and split just a tiny part of it, the power released is immense.

And that, apparently, is what Einstein's famous equation was all about.  

Then the C.O. talked about the size of the Milky Way in these terms - I am hoping that my notes are correct here: In one second light travels over 180,000 miles, so think, if you are up to the maths, how far it would travel in a year...  The word is mind-boggling.

The the C.O, asked us how long it would take for light to travel from one end of the Milky Way to the other.  The answer was apparently 100,000 years - that, bear in mind, is light years.  That is an immensity of time I can't really comprehend.  But the point the Speaker was making is to try to think about how much energy must it have taken to create that much matter - and to remember that the Milky Way is just a small part of the Universe, just a detail in its immensity.

Jehovah is the Source of all this energy. The Hebrew Scriptures told us that thousands of years ago.

And we can ask him to give us some of that energy so that we can keep going.

As Isaiah, speaking under inspiration, tells us:

“Lift up your eyes to heaven and see.

Who has created these things?

It is the One who brings out their army by number;

He calls them all by name.

Because of his vast dynamic energy and his awe-inspiring power,

Not one of them is missing."

- Isaiah 40:26