Scottish Snapshots

For no particular reason, Bass Rock, taken from Seacliff Beach.

The Flavour of the Month

The weather might have turned distinctly Mediterranean,  the sun might be shining on Scotland but despite the light that old familiar darkness has come creeping in.

I can hold it at bay, I need to withdraw further than I already am (isolation is luckily a talent many only children possess).  I shall sit in the sunshine, absorb that good Vitamin D while avoiding the burn.  Quietly, assuredly I will hold my own counsel as I always do.

The flavour of this darkness is irrelevance, I feel irrelevant to all except my sons.   Well I am irrelevant to all except my sons but the trick is to remember that.  I keep my head and heart focused on that one thing that keeps me from being overwhelmed and swallowed completely.  I don't matter to anyone but them and that has to be enough.

Can't See The Wood...

My sons returned from summer Scout camp today and amongst the mountain of washing they also brought this little gem from the campfire -

Each boy is asked to talk for 30 seconds on one subject so if someone says ticket all you are allowed to talk about is tickets.  It's harder than it sounds.

One lad was given the subject "trees" and came up with this

"You can make trees from wood..."

Indeed you can.  Son 2of2 doesn't get why I find that so funny but maybe it's just my weird sense of humour.

D-Day + 1

Yesterday the Western world took pause to reflect on the 70th anniversary of D-day.  It was, considering the way of the world now, a respectful event.  In particular the memorial held in France.

I particularly loved the report than an 89-year-old man, told by his care home staff he couldn't go, snuck out and went anyway.  Good on you mate and shame on the care home staff forgetting they are dealing with adults who would rather risk an all important journey like this than sit vegetating.

Read today that the actor who played the original Scotty in Star Trek was shot six times, losing part of a finger in the process.  He was part of the Canadian forces.  There have been so many humbling yet amazing stories from heroes who never thought of themselves as anything other than ordinary young men doing their duty.

My own thoughts yesterday - the men known cruelly as the D-Day Dodgers.  Fighting an equally brutal battle in Italy.  I think my dad must have been stationed in Bari with the RAF at the time.  He had plenty of tales of his own, rarely recounted but devastating when he did, therefore I know the places he went (Burma, North Africa, Italy) but the only one I could possibly put a date on was that he was in North Africa when the Italians capitulated. 

He recalled lying in a ditch with some of the crew while a large part of the Italian army stationed there marched past.  They didn't know the Italians were going to surrender so spent the whole time thinking that if they were found that would be it.  To experience such things as a teenager and then a young man - he was only five years older than my sons are now when he signed up.

The Strangest Month

As a good part of it is spent on holiday and all routine is thrown to the wind, this does feel like an odd month.  Stranger still is that I realised today there is not going to be a point any time soon when I walk down to the town and don't still expect to go to my mother's flat.

I pass by even though I should turn left and through the automatic doors, greeted by the smells of food from the kitchens as we trot upstairs to the little flat after first checking to see if she was in the common room.

Routine has all gone and things are uncertain.

Mothering Sunday

My competence as a daughter may have been questionable however I am hopeful that I make a much better mum. 

As the first mothers day where I've not had to think of presents or outings it did feel more than a little strange.  My boys put a lot of effort in to this morning, home made pancakes from one and chocolates and a card from the other.  Lovely.

So here is chubby little me with my ever unimpressed mother at the old cafe near Millport.  The site of the cafe is now where my dad's bench is, where her plaque is in the process of being added.

The Business of Death

Sunday morning my mother gave up her fight against pneumonia.   Getting on with the business of death is much easier than when my dad died but holding off the sledgehammer of grief is just as hard.

Last time it was because I had to be there completely for my mother.  She relied on me entirely and grief was closed away in a box.  Now I go about the informing of relatives and friends, an ever shrinking group - what once took me two evenings now took just over an hour.

Tomorrow I will clear out what I want from her little flat and donate the rest - clothes, books and furniture to the other residents.  I've already contacted the council to get her plaque beside dad's on the bench at Fintry Bay.  It's a machine in motion and at some point I'll get off, clear my head and be able to untangle these confused emotions and think.

We had a difficult relationship over the years but what does that matter?  Next Monday we will see who comes to pay their respects but I'm of the mind that it's their conscience on how they treated her in life.

Spring

It's the first day of Spring today and I can read yesterday's post with mild horror.  No matter how turbulent the emotions are nothing humbles more than sitting beside your dying parent.

And The World Tips Once Again

So it looks highly likely that at some point today I'll lose my mother.

And the worse thing is not that our difficult relationship is making it hard to mourn or that my illness is making it hard to cope.  Instead a huge selfish bug has kicked in and all I can think of is that we're likely to lose our home.

Once again I fail as a mother.  My boys are doing so well at the school yet I know that the mortgage company will laugh at the very thought of letting me pay off the remainder, which in the grand scheme of things isn't much (about £15k).  Ex made sure my credit rating was ruined and there is not one thing I can do about it - and I've tried.

Does that seem callous?  To be thinking of this as my mother lies dying?  Possibly, as there will always be a solution.  Part of me just wants to crumple to the ground, part of me wants to run into the street screaming at the top of my lungs.  We are a small family and since my dad died it seems to have been a run of bad luck.  I just want to catch a break, I want to be able to relax and mourn properly without life constantly kicking me further down.
Please.

Just Because Sometimes...

You didn't see me I was falling apart
I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in the park
You didn't see me I was falling apart
I was a television version of a person with a broken heart

It's Like This

If your imagination is stifled, not encouraged in any way, then it becomes stagnant and more difficult to access.  As a parent it's a responsibility to let your children become who they are not who you expect them to be.

Let them run; roll down the hill; get their new shoes muddy; paint and draw and forget the mess until it's time for you all to clear up (yes, them too, it's important); bake cakes and not worry if they're inedible or all over the place; write silly stories; sing silly songs; make up words.

That's the jist of it all.

On another note, it's also worthy letting them fail, finding out that the world, that people, are sometimes mean and nasty.  Grow from it, confident that they know how to deal with the situation, that they haven't been hidden away and protected to the point that they can't cope with reality.

That last one I'm seeing a lot of.

Keep On Swimming

It is dark days like this that make me think of restarting the other blog, the one where I parked my negative thoughts during the aftermath of my marriage break-up.  Because once the black cloud has me it is very hard, very hard to force a positive outlook and on nights like this, if it wasn't for the fact I have my sons, I would no longer be here.

That is a scary truth to acknowledge but I fear that for my own sake I must do so.  I'm always "fine", I'm always trying to smile through it but as times it gets so difficult.  I hate to be melancholy and to pick over the bones of what is wrong in an orgy of self pity but I just can't help it at times and if I hold on in there it will pass.

It's like the kiddie film when they say keep on swimming but I sometimes wonder how long I have to swim through the filthy, mucky stuff and when I will reach clear, blue water.

Being Selfish

For this is the year where I feel it is necessary to become a little more selfish without losing that which makes me.

Anyhoose - the West coast of Scotland (as well as the coast from Cornwall right up) has received a battering from the new year to say the least.  To illustrate perfectly -

This is how the pier at Millport normally looks...

And this is how it looked today

And I should really be thinking of all those poor people stuck on the island, stomach churning as the waves get higher, wilder and closer to the front door.  Instead all I can think is - please let dad's bench survive!

Selfish yes but it means so much to have done something for him that he would have been so happy with that I want nothing to ruin it.  And that is that.

(Photos taken from the t'internet)

Reboot

So at midnight tonight we get to put the clocks forward a year.  Tomorrow won't really be any different from today but it will *feel* different and that's the point.
Who says they don't believe in psychology obviously doesn't make any resolutions - to be broken within the first week - it's tradition!  Even those who promise not to play resolution roulette (which one will it land on? Congratulations, you got "Lose Weight" *audible groan*)  I know I do.

Twelve Years Ago Today

At just after 2 p.m. my life changed forever.  While the memories might be blighted with the realisation that who I had married would always let me down and the annoyance that I still made excuses for him "because of his upbringing" (which was a big old lie like everything else) there is this shining light.

Because no matter what, I will forever have this and that is worth diamonds and gold:

Happy birthday boys

T'was The Night Before Christmas....

And noms through the house...

With All The Best Intentions

I have been looking in to the world of art journals and the superbly organised and dedicated people who can and do fulfil their little books with alarming regularity.

As this blog testifies it is an evasive talent and one I wish I could capture and so, once again, and now in my 42nd year I tentatively look to achieving similar in both my art and my writing.  One each day, it doesn't seem too far fetched (she says now.)  I do promise myself this every year, especially around now as Christmas is knocking on the door and the year in about to reset to January again.

I need to work on both to improve, the art soothes my soul and I can even, on occasion, quieten the angry spirit that rises on recalling just how I was so easily discouraged and turned away from something that means so much.  Same goes for the writing.

It is a mistake that as a parent I am determined not to make.  Hell, maybe I might end up good at something for once.  I can do this and I want to do more:

It's Been A Heck Of A Year

My favourite month, the month of my birth, my sons' birth, Christmas and all the Yuletide festivities and each year gets a little further away from that magical place.  Yet there is still something about December and the dark days (that suit my mood of late). 

I'd much prefer for a cold, frosty month than the wind and icy rain of today.  The skies are so clear, cerulean blue sharpness.  

I feel sad the boys do not experience a large family Christmas but then again the ones I went to were never that good anyway.  I suppose if invited, they would experience whatever happens at their father's new family home with her family but they don't want to.  Youngest is very particular with what happens and I love that about him.  Eldest pretends he isn't that bothered but truly is.

We have a small family and it has been another year in the washing machine, but when we come out the other side we will still, no matter how much more we have to take, we will still be rich in love.

Little Bites

Hearing of someone who got so tired they spent over a minute trying to get into the wrong hotel room.

Picturing the poor sod in said wrong hotel room, covers pulled up to chin and staring into the darkness, as that minute stretched out into a *really* long time.

Sometimes it is the daftest things that make me laugh.

Inspiration From What Is Around You

While spending a very short week in the sunny splendour of Lanzarote we visited the house of the late Cesar Manrique, an artist born in Lanzarote who returned to his homeland in order to save it from the high rise horrors plaguing other tourist spots in Spain.  For that they should be eternally grateful and eternally proud.

I looked out over the football field behind my house today to see all the trees have been mown down to make way for yet another identikit road of houses.  Oh for the power of Manrique to have kept that little wood safe from the greed of developers.  I guess the heron, fox and other wildlife can get lost as long as they make a profit with their "exclusive" houses.

Anyway, stop wittering on.  Cesar Manrique built his house within the volcanic bubbles, while also ensuring the volcanoes remained protected.  He also took inspiration from the landscape and although modern art isn't really my thing I can see and appreciate works like this for the power and beauty they show:

And how many art galleries allow you to happily take photographs, to truly enjoy the art and take home the memories?

Wonder and the impulse which leads us to observation are the secret of analysis. ~ Cesar Manrique