We are suspended between disappearances. It is not black over Bill’s mother, she has simply disappeared, together with the Lammermuir and the Cheviot, all quietly erased by smirr. The wet hangs, bone-chilling, in the air. Drainage ditches are lipping with weak tea and the water table has escaped, with glassy sheets covering fanned out buttercupsContinue reading “Crewel weather”
Category Archives: family
New Habits
The same, but different is the new Ruthven House motto. We finally unpacked enough boxes to enable Mum to move into her new house in the middle of the month. There remain a number of cardboard hold outs, squirrelled away in corners where Mum thinks I don’t know about them, and a vast realm ofContinue reading “New Habits”
New year nip
Things are gradually getting back to normal. All our visitors have gone now and, aside from intermittent confrontations in the battlefield of Mum’s unpacking (usually after a landmine discovery of yet another box of china/glassware/towels), peace has descended. All of the fruitcake and almost all the Christmas sweeties have been snarfed and we are graduallyContinue reading “New year nip”
Almost quarter way through
A twitter compadre has just noted that this is the last day of the first quarter of the current century. So you are probably expecting me to say something momentous and deep about the state of our times. Fear not…… I shall leave you to your own ruminations and conclusions, but hope you find someContinue reading “Almost quarter way through”
The Christmas Remix
Yesterday was fairly full on! I think I sat down for the first time around 6.30 – and then got up again as there was weary sighing and tutting from the cranberry sauce team about the fire not being lit and the table not being set yet. As I looked around the just wiped downContinue reading “The Christmas Remix”
How can it be the 23rd already?
How did this happen? One moment I was ahead of the game, the next practically timed out. Today was the day for food shopping and delivering the last minute by hand cards. Whilst Keith tackled Sainsbury’s, Mum and I took Lyra for a very quick spin around the loch. I then dropped mum off atContinue reading “How can it be the 23rd already?”
London bound
So today we are down in London for a trip to the ballet with our chum Anne. We pulled in at Kings Cross just after one and, more pertinently, ten minutes after my train book was finished. This was just about perfect, allowing for a little “after think.” Since then, we have chatted the chat,Continue reading “London bound”
De profundis
It was awful. Men were trapped under wardrobes. Chairs were multiplying in quiet corners. There were lids with no pans and other pans with no lids, but definitely not those lids – oh no. I shall say no more until my next venting* *scheduled for tomorrow Anyway, I am done. Totally frazzled. Whatever plans IContinue reading “De profundis”
Kerry Packered
I spent today shifting boxes. The removal men arrived and delivered the first van load then went off for more. In the gap I moved half the boxes they had delivered into the vast cupboard (formerly coal cellar) Dan had just that minute finished shelving. That was rather the pattern of the day. After theContinue reading “Kerry Packered”
Lucky for some
Never listen to triskadekaphobics; the thirteenth has been delightful. We had a pretty pink dawn which, in spite of gurning shepherds, simply heralded a bright and breezy day. We were up, bacon sarnied and out with the dog before Jack Robinson could be declaimed. Down in the woods, the worst of the mud had driedContinue reading “Lucky for some”