The October Calendar

We chose a Southern Marsh Orchid for our October calendar.  And the fact that we are now in October makes me realise we should think about next year's calendar if we are going to do one.  Bur what will our subject be?

Wednesday morning was cold and rainy.  The valiant pigeon still sits on her nest. We are going to have to secure our balcony next time we go away...  I have decided to call her Petula as she is sitting among geranium petals.  I pop out to say a quiet hello once or twice a day, but keep it short, as it stresses her out.  Col has got a lovely photo of her, so I hope that will head my next blog.

I find myself hoping that her nest fails, so she and Mr.P will look for a different spot next time - anywhere other than our balcony - but then I feel mean as she is so bravely dedicated to her eggs, sitting tight even when two fearsome monsters (the Captain and me) loom over her to say a gentle hello.

Col has put some food and water down within her reach, but she isn't touching them, so Mr.P must be feeding her. He is very discreet though, as we never see him.  Having said that I did notice a crafty flap late afternoon which must have been him returning with her evening meal - or her evening mealworm?

I am finding it very hard to recover from the rigours of the last few weeks - hard to sleep, hard to do anything.  But I guess this is old age. And I am worryingly like my granny in her last year - still living in her own home - still coping valiantly - but with many sit downs and breathless pauses.

And I would not like to claim that I am managing as valiantly as my gran did.  For one thing, I have Captain B to help and support me all the way - but she had been a widow for a long time.  Both my grandfathers had died before I was born. And I never met my Polish grandma because of the Iron Curtain that Stalin had brought down across Europe, cutting my father - and so many others - off from the remnants of his family.

Today we have our family Zoom though John cannot make it.   It is a grey and stormy day - it will bring a lot of leaves down - the sound of the sea is wonderful, and there was a fantastic sunrise I think as I happened to look out earlier and the tops of the trees in the front gardens were all gold.

I think poor rained-on Petula has been turning her eggs...  

The George at Hathersage

On Saturday we met Bea, Simon and Phyllis at The George at Hathersage for lunch.  And what an excellent lunch it was.  We have never been there before. When we lived in Sheffield we used to go to the Scotsman's Pack - I think it was in the days of Jim and Sarah.  And that is another long long time ago.

I asked Col to take a photo of the Autumnal flower arrangement outside the pub.  It was such a lovely drive through Derbyshire in the Autumn sunshine.  Bea said the same of her drive.

I had cod with a sweet potato and herb cake, broccoli, and an exquisite butter sauce, and Himself had a very tender beef dish.  I then followed up - sheer greed - with an apple and ginger pudding with coconut ice cream that I was simply not able to finish, good though it was.

Maybe this is the moment to talk about the delicious meals Nute cooked for us: stir fry chicken, sphagbol, and a berry crumble to name a few.  All I was capable of was making the lunchtime soup.

I wonder if we will get to The George again. I hope so. It is an excellent meeting point for us and the Marple diaspora.  On the other hand, I found myself wondering if this would be my last trip to my beautiful hometown.  Since my parents moved there when I was four I have either lived in Sheffield, or visited at least once a year.  But will I be able to continue. Was this my last visit?

Old age is a series of "lasts" not all realised they are "the last time" until they have gone.

Of course I hope to "inherit the earth", as Jesus promised, and live forever on this splendid planet, but that remains in Jehovah's hands.  And the way things are going, if I am there I will have to come the long way round, by the resurrection.

Compelled by Squirrels

I would say propelled by squirrels, but I am not really capable of any kind of propulsion these days.  Anyway, during the last two weeks while we have been at the bungalow and I have been sitting in the dining room typing away on my computer - being as housebound there as I am here - several times a squirrel has come up to the window, stood up, scrabbling at it and staring at me. This has compelled me to get up, slowly and painfully, creak off to the kitchen, get a handful of nuts and go out and feed the beast.

The summer of drought has probably left them short of food.

We drove back down to the South Coast on Monday - 5 hours door to door and a much much easier journey traffic wise than the journey up two weeks ago.  And it was another lovely Autumn day.  

However a seagull has set up home on our balcony while we were away!!   She is sitting one of our flower boxes on what may be eggs  - though I so much hope not - and, brave creature, will not move.  I think all we can do is use the balcony to the max and hope they will get the idea that this is not a suitable place to raise their children. And, surely, if there are eggs, they won't hatch?  Isn't this the wrong time of year?

I daren't look it up in case I find they have three broods a year.

The photo above is of a Sheffield Squirrel on one of Nute's bird feeders.

A Mini Aramco Reunion

These are the pots that Anne Marie Sheal made for in our expat years. We still use most of them, and they all decorate our flat in their various ways.

We almost managed a bit of an Aramco reunion, as Julia came over for lunch on Wednesday just missing Peter, Marie's husband, who didn't arrive till early evening.  It was good to talk over old times and old memories and also to note how much we are all enjoying our retirement - despite the ill-health and the losses that come with age.

Both are keeping themselves amazingly busy in their different ways.  And Peter is busy writing a memoir, which I am hoping he will finish before I do, as it will obviously contain a lot about Anne Marie.

We gave Julia sandwiches, crisps and ice-cream for lunch, and Nute cooked a great supper of spagbol for Peter, followed by the chocs that Julia had bought us.  Thanks Julia!

I was browsing the web today and came across this from Julie Burchill in an article about the Police and the tragedy of Henry Novak:

"Once more that quote from Huxley’s Crome Yellow comes to mind, as it does with increasing frequency:

‘The surest way to work up a crusade in favour of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behaviour “righteous indignation” – this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.’

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/06/05/the-police-are-not-our-mates/

I guess that sums up my wariness about Woke - too much "righteous indignation", which looks a lot more like self-righteous indignation, goes along with it.  Be woke by all means, but don't use it as a tool with which to mob and target others.

But what I would really advise, what is truly life-saving, is to be awake in the spiritual sense, to listen to the Kingdom message that our loving Creator, Jehovah, is having preached worldwide.  And that is a message that heals our relationship with others, rather than causing us to judge and denounce them.

Life With Cats.

 

This is the latest instalment of Nute's life with her cats, written as a Shakespearean tragedy, on Facebook.

The cats are Janet's two (the "imaginary cats" - very shy cats taken in when Janet, their person and our friend, died) and who are super fussy about their food, even in cat terms; Bartholomew (a recently adopted stray); and the One-eyed Bandit (who arrives regularly via catflap from who knows where).

He is glossy and portly, so he either has a good home, or has a lot of regular cat restaurants to visit.  Probably both.

The photo is one Col took some years ago of one of the imaginaries, Abra, visible and asleep.

CATTUS ANDRONICUS: A Tragedy in One Act

Dramatis Personae

DANUTA – an elegant and wise woman of a certain age

ABRA – an Imaginary Cat of the grumpy persuasion

TABS – likewise, but mildly benign. The rumour that she has brain cells between her ears has been greatly exaggerated.

BARTHOLOMEW – a stray who was recently caught by a cat charity and de-nutted. BARTHOLOMEW is understandably a bit peeved about this.

THE ONE-EYED BANDIT – a one-eyed bandit.

Act 1, Scene 1

A kitchen. Enter DANUTA, bleary-eyed, yawning, would no doubt be scratching her bum if she wasn’t too elegant to do that. Heads towards kettle. Enter ABRA

ABRA: Yow! Yow! Yow! Yow!

DANUTA: sighs and diverts from kettle. Opens tin of super-expensive cat food and offers it to ABRA.

ABRA: Ack! (spurns food with burying motions) Yow! Yow! Yow! Yow!

DANUTA rotates cat dish south-east, north-west and finally nor-nor-west. ABRA consents to eat.

DANUTA heads back towards kettle. Enter TABS.

TABS: Chirp. Chirpchirpchirpchirp. (Walks in little circles) Chirp!

DANUTA: Sighs and diverts from kettle again. Opens a tin of different flavoured super-expensive cat food. Aligns the dish with the shadow cast by Stonehenge on the first Tuesday in May 1890.

TABS: Ack! (spurns food and makes burying motions) Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!

DANUTA realigns bowl, Stonehenge, shadow, June, first Thursday, 1969. TABS consents reluctantly to eat.

Enter ONE-EYED BANDIT, probably wearing cat flap round his middle.

ONE-EYED BANDIT: MAOWRR. Heads towards cat dishes as Imaginary Cats flee tripping up DANUTA who now has her cup of tea.

DANUTA: Delete!.

(DANUTA drops cup. Tea, bits of cup and what remains of DANUTA’s equilibrium head for four corners of the universe.) EXEUNT CATS.

DANUTA: DELETE DELETED DELETING DELETE! (Sits at table and bangs forehead on surface.)

Enter BARTHOLOMEW who makes his way to the dishes and cleans them out. Exits.

Enter TABS. Inspects empty dishes.

TABS: Chirp?

If Jehovah has kept Janet safe in his memory, then she will live again when the time comes to wake the dead from their dreamless sleep and I hope she will be so happy to know how well her last two cats settled down in their new home and their new rambling garden. We know she was very worried about how things would turn out for them.

Botanical Road

 

I walked up Botanical Road

Gold leaves against the blue

I said, out loud to my surprise

"Thank you God, Thank You".

I wrote that poem many years ago - 40 years ago in fact.  It marks a moment in Sheffield, on a late September afternoon, when the creation finally told me of its Creator, as clearly as if it had spoken. And I began to search for Him, in order to say thanks - thanks for making us such a heartbreakingly lovely planet.

It took me nearly two years, but I did not give up, and Jehovah, very very kindly, let me find Him.  And it transformed my life.  How I would have got through the distresses of old age without the support of the truth I do not know.

And when I began my Bible Study with the Jehovah's Witnesses, I came across these words, for the first time:

"The heavens are declaring the glory of God; the skies above proclaim the work of his hands." - Psalm 19:1

Yes.  I knew those words to be the truth as that is what the sky had told me.  And it had been such a powerful moment that I had said "Thank you God", out loud, and then hastily looked round to see if there was anyone on the road looking askance at a middle-aged lady who was apparently talking to herself.

There was no-one.  And now, speaking from the depth of old age, I wish I had known how young I was then.

In the wake of my unusually prolonged arthritis flare-up of the previous week I have been left exhausted, feeling as if I have had a bad bout of flu and with a terrible cold sore (I think its that) - something I have not had since I was a child.

Well, they do call it a second childhood...  and poor Captain B has gone up to the 24 hour Pharmacy to see if he can get me anything for it.  It is quite painful and did keep me awake a bit - though there are plenty of other aches and pains to do the job too.

The outcome of that visit is that we spent the rest of the day at the Drop In Health Centre, waiting and waiting and waiting, and I am now on a course of antibiotics.  Oh for perfect health, under the loving and perfect rule of the Kingdom of God.

ASLAN

Apparently Hollywood - well I assume it could only be Hollywood - is making a new version of The Chronicles of Narnia, and is casting Meryl Streep as Aslan the Lion - the godfigure in C.S.Lewis' theology.  Well, she is going to voice him.

Aslan the Lioness?    The photo above is one Col took on one of his trips to South Africa. The lion looks rather splendid,and I confidently feel that, if it did speak, it would sound nothing at all like Meryl Streep.

Should Christians be upset about this?  I assume the point is to upset them, but why let it?  As a Christian all I ask of Hollywood is that I be allowed not to watch its product.  And I hope and pray to continue to be able to tell all who will listen about the Kingdom of God, the heavenly government - what it is doing already and what it will do.

But also why is the Narnia series considered to be Christian?   I loved reading them all as a child - C.S.Lewis really takes you into that World Within the Wardrobe, but the theology is strongly Trinitarian, and the Trinity is not a Christian teaching. In fact it contradicts what Jesus himself said about his relationship to his Father.

We are having such a lovely Autumn here in the UK. Heartbreakingly lovely. 

The Captain and I are both on new meds - and he is back on the daily Blood Pressure routine.  That may be why the loveliness of Autumn seems especially heartbreaking this year.