Frustrated wail

Over the last few weeks it had begun to dawn on me something in my more-or-less-spit-new-laptop was not as it should be. It was baulking at tasks, taking far too long to kick into operation. Turns out the hard drive was on the blink and on Wednesday it keeled over and died. Much help from son-in-law-to-be and I got the details I needed and reported the failure of this under-warranty device to HP, who manufactured it. More phone calls, more ‘if it is a gobble-de-gook, choose button five’ and eventually the promise of a new hard drive.

Realisation that I had only backed up some of the stuff I wanted and frantic trips to Kilmarnock to the computer shop, where they did managed to get everything accessible, but at cost of selling me some kind of external drive. I already have one (though had not used it as much as I should have – fear nothing however, the book was fully backed up)

I was promised the HD on Saturday – it arrived late Tuesday, and on putting it in, it returned yet more error messages. Turns out they should also have sent disks with the OS on them. These will now come from France. They will come in two weeks time.

Meanwhile I dragged out my old lap top. It struggles. It has no card reader, so I will need to search for my camera cables – dear knows where I put them! – It really struggles with ebay which I need for present buying. Its keyboard is faulty, and I need to keep checking it has actually delivered the message I typed, which would be easier if I was not dyslexic.

I do realise this is not a proper blog post – it is a frustrated wail. Still, at least now you know.

So apologies and I will post something more interesting and less exasperated tomorrow.

Alexander Peden goes home

Tonight Sandy Peden went back to the hamlet where he was born to attend a Halloween Party.

I most sincerely hope it offends the Vatican. But it is unlikely to offend them quite as much as their attitude to LBGT people and to women offends me.

… that was its name

Half the animals on this holding have names, proper names. They are the lucky ones. Jacob, and Mace, and Max, and now one of the sheep. And the Three Musketeers.

I had three sheep, Polly and Cotton and the lamb. The lamb was destined to the deep freeze. But then a tragedy happened. Cotton, who was over-stout, got on her back in the field and died. She was my favourite sheep and I was most upset. I was also in a dilemma. Because Polly is not young, and she might not have another ewe lamb, and if she did not before she died, I would be without a descendant of Eve, the late and great. ~So I have taken the decision that the lamb should stay, which meant finding a name. Since she is neurotic and constantly certain that she and her mother are Doomed, Doomed I Tell You, she has been named Cassandra, or Cassie, and in her name, she is assured of life, since I cannot eat those who are named.

The Three Musketeers are also benefiting from a tragedy. Their mother and their other nine siblings were abstracted (missing presumed eaten) by a person or persons unknown.
It has taken a good deal of care to get them independent and thriving. In the process they got a name. And a life.

And today I inspected the pitifully thin little ewe who has been seeking refuge in my outbuildings with real desperation. She is too thin – I suspect she missed out on worming for liver fluke. The shepherd has 2000 sheep. One is not at a premium. I will buy her wormer (and my own girls too). And I guess, if she does, I shall have to have a conversation with the shepherd about a change of ownership.

Closure, of a sort

Yesterday really was an epic day – I went to Mount Stuart to research on the biography for the last time.  There was a pub lunch.  I spent the morning in a state of excitement akin to drunkenness.   Then after the last little bit of research, I was suddenly aware of a kind of emptiness.

Some of the best moments of writing this book have been in the beauty and peace of Mount Stuart’s library.  There was companionship and excitement and that peculiar thrill of tracking down a line of investigation and being proved right. that is gone.

But then there was champagne, and a a very lush cake, and a most delightful present in the shape of a book by the biog’s subject, and I cheered up.

It is an achievement, getting to the end of the research (yet more editing ahead) but it is a loss too.  Still, in in all, a really epic day.

Door frog

Not tree frog, door frog.

Last night she was climbing up the jam of my door, cushioned by the gentle rain, picking off midges. She was about the size of my finger nail.

The core of the Jesus’s message

Long before the Reformation, a belief arose that if you put the Bible into the hands of ordinary people they would read it and make sense of it. Yes the Reformers also bought into that idea.

That it failed is only too apparent this week.

The core of Jesus’s message is a demand for forgiveness from person to person. You hardly need me to spell it out further. It is there in parable after parable, in his teaching, in his own life and his horrible death. Every Christian, even the most nominal, is surely aware of the one prayer he taught: ‘And forgive us, in the same way that we forgive others.’

It is hard to do, but that is no excuse for not trying. If we fail, sometimes, to get our hearts and minds to drop the grievances (which so damage us) we have no excuse, none at all, for making an attempt to follow that action in our public lives and our actions (and praying for our hearts to be converted).

There is no excuse, none at all, for anybody who loves the Lord, or indeed, anybody who thinks he was an enlightened moral teacher, baying for the blood of those who chose in an act of mercy to release a dying man.

Go read the gospels if you doubt this.

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi

Should a dying man, who has always denied the crime for which he is imprisoned, be released? I think so yes, but then I am a Christian and I would say that, wouldn’t I? I am bound to argue for forgiveness, and for mercy. I am bound to argue for higher ethical standards for myself and my society than I see put into practise elsewhere.

Am I sorry for those who lost loved ones and who will feel pain because the man found guilty [sic] is free for a few weeks before his death? Yes, I am. But I am influenced by the fact that he is no longer any danger to them or to theirs.

I am influenced, too, by a sense that what is against the core of my own faith is also actually and objectively unhealthy. Taking comfort in the suffering of others is natural and understandable and deeply unhealthy.

You might add, this is just a story in the news, it does not affect most ordinary people. I think it does. I now see increasing demands for revenge, for brutal and degrading treatment of others just because it is brutal and degrading. And these the people making these calls are not unkind people; generally they are those devoted to the kindly care of animals, or perhaps young children. Somehow they imagine the way to combat cruelty is by even more cruelty. It is not.

We can never really govern the actions of others. We can model healthy behaviours. In fact, we can seek to live the gospel.

A special day.

Recently I celebrated my birthday. It was strange because for the first time in my life I did not have anybody to share it with – at least in the flesh. I wondered how it would be. I started by tidying my living room, in which my neighbour had just laid my second life laminate floor. Then I fetched the beautiful birthday cake made by my son’s partner Kenneth, and lit the candle.

And then … and then… Look I can tell you the history of the whole day but it will not catch the feeling. It was a special day. Most of the things I did I might do any day – who is to restrain me, who lives a solitary life? But each moment of the day carried the feeling of its being a celebration, even the moments of work. It was with huge regret I reached the end, and bed, and knew that the next day would be just ordinary (and it was.)

All of it is the best bits – Blowers and Aggers

The beautiful boy was sitting in the passenger seat of the car outside Maryhill’s Lidl listening to his radio, turned up very high. I got into my car, started it, and my radio too came on – a look of camaraderie shot between the stout middle aged woman and the lad. We were both listening to TMS. Test Match Special is a unique experience. ‘Ball by ball commentary on the Test Match’ does not even begin to sum it up.

In quiet moments we enjoy comments on the cakes, the pies and the pigeon. If you actually using the name on your birth certificate, well, you are a bit of an outsider. Better to be Blowers, or Aggers, or CMJ. In more exciting moments, more than grown up men with accents from the thirties shout them selves hoarse with enthusiasm (just don’t have a heart attack, we so need you!). Always there is accessible commentary which helps those like me who only have the haziest grasp of the technicalities to know just why the fielder has been moved to silly mid on. And the statistics – oh they are there with the chocolate cakes. Endless, funny, delicious. And currently, the batsmen can’t bat and the bowlers can’t bowl, and the only thing saving England’s bacon is the fact the bowlers appear to be able to bat.

So if Channel 5 exhorts you to ‘The Ashes, just the best bits’ – forget it. Even if you can’t listen all day, and most of us can’t, you will have more fun, and learn more, by listening to a little more gardening at the wicket over on TMS.

Time and place

I remember a year ago today. I was already facing up to the fact that the house I had expected to buy had been mis described in respect of the one thing on which I was not prepared to compromise. I had been told it had ten acres, and actually it had four. I had sold my house for two thirds of its asking price, expecting to move to that other property which was, just, within my reduced budget. Although a dear and very kind friend had given me a room in her home, we had both expected me to move on to my own home in a few weeks. Not to mention the problems raised by my three ponies, three sheep and assorted chicken . I was very definitely a leporida with euphoric challenges (not a happy bunny). I could see no way out of my problems which did not involve more money than I had.

Today I walked up a flowering meadow deep in grass, so deep my ponies are penned in a small area to keep their weight within reasonable limits. I walked back to my own house, which is, admittedly still a work in progress, but where the living room at least is starting to look like a normal room. I was in the really fresh air, free of fumes, safe and secluded and less than 3/4 hour from Glasgow. I had somehow done it, and within my budget. what is more, ‘the other house’ had been sold for more than I would have paid in view of the lack of land. Everybody had come well out of it.

I am deeply, deeply thankful.