What’s the Story in Dalamory

I ought to write about St Andrew's Day – especially as it brings to mind visits to schools and tales of our patron saint, and every more convoluted struggles o­n my part to bring a legend alive. Nowadays it seems as if Scotland is trying desperately to assert and reinvent itself, and I often feel a bit out of kilter with it. The Parliament seems to be like that of a struggling third world state at times – laughable were it not so tragic. I want to be enthusiastic but o­nly end up worried at the priorities they set, so perhaps I should just content myself with saying that Andrew the apostle always strikes me as being solid, dependable and wanting to introduce people to his Lord. Being dependable is not to be taken lightly – we could do worse.

Happy Saint Andrew's Day.

Took this photo o­n my walk with the dog yesterday.
It shows the alpine weather and surroundings.
Absolute delight.

Being basically a tidy person I was struck by this comment o­n writing from o­ne of May Sarton's journals:

……Writing for me is a way of understanding what is happening to me, of thinking hard things out. I hve never written a book that was not born out of a question I needed to answer for myself. Perhaps it is the need to remake order out of chaos over and over again. For art is order, but it is made out of the chaos of life.

Advent means “coming”……  Christians look forward to the coming of the Christ Child at Christmas. This is the first Christmas I am retired, so it is a good time for me over the next few weeks to look forward to the birth of Jesus for myself.  Over the last few days there has been such a lot of media interest in the recent death of George Best and it is interesting that in the main, he is remembered for his outstanding skills o­n the football field. It made me think about what I would like to be remembered for. It is a question worth asking ourselves, especially in the busy run up to Christmas.

Not even a sparrow falls…….Yesterday it must have been not even a siskin falls……  Whilst getting ready to go out into the snow to take the dog for her much needed walk, there was a large bang at the window. A siskin had lost its way and tried to take a shortcut through the kitchen. At first glance it appeared to be dead, all forlorn lying in the snow, but then I saw o­ne bright eye looking up at me as if to say “What happened?”  Him Behind the Wheel did the necessary and lifted the poor creature o­nto the roof of the dog kennel, out of harm's way. I fully expected to come back and find it expired.

What joy! When we returned there was no sign of the siskin. And the cat was safely indoors. So unless a buzzard had braved the weather and the nearness to habitation, I can o­nly assume the bird had recovered and flown away. It makes me happy to think so anyway. But it does lead me o­nto other theological rambling; for instance, what about all the birds that won't make it in this weather……and what about the thousands of people starving in Niger? I believe in the God of Love, but obviously this kind of arbitrary poverty troubles many people in their quest for spirituality. When you are poor and starving, there is little energy for philosophising. The stock answer is that God knows, God cares and he asks us to be part of the answer. A sobering thought for the start of Advent tomorrow.

More weather today – this time it is snow. The worrying thing is that o­ne of our neighbours has his own specialist snow shovel.

Yesterday's photograph shows why I chose a stay at home day. Doing some tidying up in the house made me feel very virtuous. Then I got o­nto the paperwork in the study. All the filing baskets were overflowing, so these were tackled with the help of the dog and the cat. To be honest the cat slept through it and the dog kept lying in the wrong place. That is the trouble with having a small study and a large dog.

The o­nly thing I want to know is this: how is it possible to have a paperclog when o­ne is retired?

Another misty day …….. or do I live in a cloud?

The water came o­n at 3-00pm yesterday and now has gone off again. There is another burst in the main. Still, at least the water people are supposed to be totally replacing our water main before Christmas. I am at least clean today, though it makes me wonder how many more dirty days there are likely to be before Christmas.

I have been concerned about the cat lately. Not o­nly has he developed o­ne orange eye, which looks very odd next to his ordinary yellow o­ne, but he has also taken to sleeping a lot more than usual. The trouble is that he seems to have decided that my study is his preferred space. I spend half my time moving him from o­ne chair to the other, depending o­n what I am trying to do.

By the way, the vet says there is no significance to the eye business. A search o­n google brings up cats, dogs and humans with different colour eyes and lots of people asking why eyes change colour – but no answers so far.