Word of the Day

In the Scottish psyche there is ' ... oh dear, we're going to pay for this' as in Scotland 1 France 0. The antithesis is very English, 'hubris', as in England 1 Croatia 3.

Unfortunately I fell into the English trap today ... hence hubris is the word of the day!

Having seen Mum off on the bus at 9.30 am I returned to the numerous planned 'chores of the day'. First, hang up the washing, feed the birds, empty the ash, fill the peat basket and empty the compost bucket into the bin. Everything going well, continued and, after vacuuming, washed the kitchen, bathroom, porch, passageway, stairs and landing floors. Feeling very pleased with my achievements, checked the email and made some smug remark to the downunders about spring (probably that was my mistake), then I confounded my error by making a clever remark about Mum and widgets. Having finished the email I went for broke and prepared to fix said widget to underside of toilet seat.

You see the result! From small beginnings ....

I successfully removed old broken widget, drilled holes for new and glued it in place, after checking the seat was sitting securely once more. Put seat down then realised what I really needed (when gluing) was some downward pressure ... heavy weight on seat. Ah, I remembered that when preparing the ratatouille yesterday I had pressed the extra moisture out of the aubergine and courgette in the collander by use of a fine rounded boulder of serpentine (kept by the back door for such occasions). Fetched said boulder and placed on toilet seat above widget ... disaster ... hubris ... it fell into the pan and smashed it!!

A line of poetry from Milton's Ozymandos comes to mind (probably misquoted) 'Look on his works oh ye mighty and despair'!

Archie (bless his cheerful and helpful heart) has been and is away to get another pan, meanwhile I have demolished the rest of the pan in preparation for replacement. Archie has promised he will be back and have it in place before Mum comes home and only smiled when I told him shamefacedly how I had done it.

Now I desperately need a ... well, look on the bright side, at least I'm a man, but then a woman probably wouldn't have got into this situation.

'Hubris: arrogance, such as invites disaster'. Chambers Dictionary.

Moonshine

The full moon at Xmas time set me to thinking about it and realising that I did not know what the 'thirteenth' moon was. How ignorant after all those years! Of course the moon cycle is just over 29 days (as you all knew) so that every so often there are 2 full moons in one month and a 13th in the year (not last year or this year I think). So the one above is only the 12th, how boring. I would like someone to work it out but I reckon one would have to be 80 years old or so to see 1000 full moons ... now that will be a celebration!





Jamie and Helen's pictures of their house prompted me to put up a curtain rail too ... for Mum. I found the brass rail and brackets, much discoloured, in the shed (where I store such objects waiting for a purpose) and spent an afternoon (thank you Sorley for letting me out) cleaning it and putting it up. The curtains came from the gudrunsjoden catalogue. Kids ... that's grandma's daemon sitting in the corner on the box waiting for a call from its cousins who are due back in about a month.

Now I am thinking of taking the books out of the bedroom (filling the wall behind me when I took this photo). There is room for some upstairs, but some will have to go. I'm still just thinking ...

Sorry, this next picture a bit out of focus ... we made a quick visit to Snarraness Here is Mum with Sorley ... not insouciant this time ... on the road down. It is a tarmacked road now and the house has been totally rebuilt.
Another out of focus picture of Sorley standing in front of his house that will be!
Idly looking through the bookshelves and came across this wee booklet privately printed by May Stevenson ... she was Graeme (Mum's cousin) Hinton's mother's sister (I think) and she lived in a terrace opposite the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. I'm sure we visited her with Beth or Gudrun, or both? She has a great view of the old town skyline. This was rhyme I used to sing (first time I had seen it written down) and I remember my uncle singing it to me. May wrote out a number of these nonsense rhymes and illustrated them.

No picture of a nuclear power stations to hand, but I find myself in an anomalous position regarding them. The Labour government has just decided that the UK will build several of these to meet an energy gap (circa 2016-20) and, they say, help with reducing carbon release (actually very little). But in Scotland the SNP government opposes them, has powers of planning consent and will withold that ... so no nuclear power in Scotland. I have always supported Labour (hoped that Gordon Brown would prove to be an antidote to Blair, but no alas) but am anti nuclear power and not a fan of Alex Salmond (SNP Scottish First Minister) ... hhmmm. I am finding myself wanting to be shot of Westminster politics but where does that leave me? Maybe, if Mr Salmond keeps a steady head, I may find myself voting SNP at the next election ... for Independence!