Living Wittily

The intellectual life of a highland cow

 
One of the first photos I took with my new camera.

The beast is looking at me with

 

puzzled perplexity thinking,

                                     "Why do these people bother?"

 

monumental boredom sighing,

                                      "You sad man. Get a life."

 

bovine compassion empathising,

                                     "Poor man. So little hair on his wee heid."

 

territorial aggression, calculating,

                                    "Can I get him before he reaches the fence?"

 

existential well concealed joy, ruminating,

                             "Grass, blue skies, celebrity status - I've got it all."

 

The Environmentally Friendly Nature Loving White Van Man

White van man and woman are one of the easy targets for derision, criticism and general opprobrium.

They drive selfishly, assume a sovereign claim on highway territory, behave like gladiators wielding a weapon, and have made an art form of the tailgate intimidatory tactic.

This morning white van man was in front of me.

He braked suddenly and hard, and a squirrel went scampering safely across his absolute right of way.

As the squirrel settled on the garden wall and looked askance at white van man, the driver window opened, a hand appeared, and that squirrel got a finger wagging telling off that would have done credit to a teacher instilling some health and safety consciousness into a jay walking student!

I like white van man.

What does that have to do with the price of fish?

Now here's a retail mystery that is hard to understand but easy to solve - if there's the will to do so.

I stopped on Thursday night for a fish and chip tea on my way to Aberdeen.

The menu offered for £8.15 small haddock with chips + pot of tea + buttered roll + ice cream.

I ordered but said I didn't want the roll or the ice cream.

Went to pay and was charged £7.55 for the fish and chips, and £1.20 for the tea - total of £8.75.

I said I had had haddock and chips (three hads in a row:)) tea.

No I hadn't had the ice cream or roll - but if I took them now I could have the cheaper price.

So I have to eat more calories to get it cheaper, huh?

Or I take the roll and ice cream, but leave them on the table, and get the cheaper price.

Or I don't take them at all, and pay 60 pence more for less food.

Now how does that work?

I reasoned reasonably, persuaded persuasively, charmed charmingly, looked pained painfully, and eventually was charged for the fish tea at £8.15

That was at the Bridge of Allan chip shop - and let me say, the fish and chips were superb. So not knocking this fine establishment, (which I've patronised for years and will again), just asking them to not create the kind of offers that either waste food or waste waists!

Fish Supper Haiku

Light, crisply battered,

deep fried piscean banquet,

served with chips, and tea.

 

Buttered roll, ice cream?

Superfluous additions

to a perfect meal.

 

Fish Supper Fibonacci

Fish.

Chips.

Enough.

Fish and chips!

Forget the ice cream!

Battered haddock, not buttered roll.

Calories, cholesterol and saturated fat

are all fine in moderation, so choose your vice carefully and stick with fish and chips!

 

 

Be lifted up ye ancient gates - prayer for a garage door.

Yesterday I innocently went to put the bin out.

Opened the garage door, wheeled the bin to the pavement.

Came back and pulled the garage door closed and the tension wires snapped.

Garage door now across my shoulders making me feel like Samson stealing the Gates of Gaza.

How to tell Sheila who is at the other end of the house with doors shut, probably with the hoover on.

Neighbour in a hurry mistook my weight-lifting exploits for knowledgeable enterprising can do.

Before I can tell her to ring our bell, she's in the car and waving cheerio.

Can see she's well impressed that I'm repairing the door myself while holding it up.

Tried quoting the Bible, "Lift your heads, you gates. Be lifted you ancient doors."

Didn't work. Decided not to try the musical version, Ye gates lift up your heads on high.

By an improvised contortionist act I can just about reach the step ladders with one leg.

Means standing on one leg still holding up the door.

The leg in question is the recently referred to leg with the torn corpuscnesium.

Like those films of prisoners stretching to reach the keys beyond the bars, the extended leg slowly inches towards the step ladders, not quite reaching.

Just one toe-length more..but to misquote the Sermon on the Mount "who by worrying can add one inch to their leg length"?

Well me actually!

Using legs, arms, back, and a number of neologisms and alternative linguistic apellations for doors and ladders, the ladders are maneouvred into position.

Minutes later, traumatised but triumphant the garage doors are propped up.

Later the repair man came, rewired it and re-set the spring.

I watched him do it so that next time.....

Sports Injuries and Victoria Plums

It's been a week of limping progress. Literally. Should a man my age be playing five-a-side football? The unanimous view of those who know me well enough to be unflinchingly frank is a scornful negative. Feel free to offer your own compassionate, caring and courteously concerned opinion. Last Friday I discovered I have a gastrocnemius - that's the long muscle in the calf that deals with stopping and acceleration. I stopped, accelerated and then 'ping', had to stop! been slow and sore ever since!

The positive and friendly doctor I saw the following day told me I was very fit for my age. That the injury was an impact injury. Could happen to anyone. Even David Beckham. This final consolatory comparison was mentioned to Stuart, who now refers to my wife's middle name as Posh! Personally, I think the comparison with Beckham bears some credibility - after all we both had to put ice packs on our leg....but in fairness, I struggle to find a more compelling comparison, because I ain't rich!!

However it is on the mend, slowly and will need regular stretching exercises for a while. Meanwhile my leg is technicolour, purple, red and yellow hues, impressive as an impressionist landscape in various blurred hues.

Not to worry. yesterday I ate my first punnet of Victoria Plums. And I easily walked the length of the high street to buy them - and as they make such a brief appearance on the shelves, I bought some for other devotees of this most wonderful autumn food. There is an entirely neglected sacrament of friendship in buying your favourite food and sharing it with others. The trick is to buy enough to indulge yourself as well. Actually, on further consideration, the purple red and yellow of the plum is vaguely familiar to the purple red and yellow hues of.......see above :)

A walk in the woods, an old scooter, and a dazzling dome :)

Out for a walk and found this abandoned scooter. Probably the nearest I'll ever come to being a biker - don't have the gear though. The rusting remains would make an interesting garden feature with a couple of climbing plants around it. No idea how it got there, or why. Must be easier to dump an old scooter than taking it a mile into wooded countryside. Or was it stolen, dumped and never found? Something poignant about the skeleton of what used to be someone's pride and joy. Sorry about the shiny heid! A friend took the photo and was unable to cope with the challenge of bright light reflected from a shiny dome - or was the intelligent camera not intelligent enough :-) ?

.......................

Fibonacci poems. Just to remind you - a fibonacci poem is one where each line contains the exact number of syllables of the two previous lines. The sequrence is therefore 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34 and if you're feeling creative or silly, 55!

Lament for a Scooter (Fibonacci)

Lost?

Dumped.

Stolen?

Rusted wreck.

Someone's pride and joy.

Scooter or show-off's chariot?

How many miles were on the clock, each one wind-swept fun?

Flaking metal withers slowly; grass and whin entwine, clothing with green the naked frame.

Machinery meets botany, rust versus chlorophyll, inanimate detritus midst living fauna - fly dumping as perverse art form!

The most stressful relaxation bath ever!

Bought Radox Muscle Soak Salts with Rosemary Parfum, as you do.

Running the bath with a generous couple of fistfuls of pale blue saline therapy.

Standing au naturel ready to be immersed, a particularly Baptist liturgical act.

The water temperature a bit hot so turn on the cold tap.

A fountain of North East cold water hits the ceiling and sprays the au naturel Baptist with a bracing deluge of snow melt temperature water.

The top of the cold tap has come loose and I try to push it back into the socket.

Won't go - too much water pressure, and the bathroom is beginning to get seriously wet.

Won't turn in the screw because I can't make up my mind whether it is a reverse screw to tighten or slacken - and by now I'm so spooked I turn it both ways without success.

Prayer doesn't help despite a number of biblical stories about rain, floods, stormy seas and how prayer makes water behave.

Yell for help. Lady of house finds the cold water supply turn off tap, but can't turn it off.

By now the tap is back in and only thin jets of iced water are escaping - an iced face shower wasn't ordered.

Change places and I hurtle downstairs turn off the water supply, run back upstairs and resume my finger in the wall approach to water control.

At last, tank drained, and tap can be screwed back together. By which time I hate water - hot or cold, Radox doctored or plain.

What started as relaxation therapy ended as emotional, mental, physical and spiritual trauma.

Went back to the tapestry and to a world where order, precision, creativity, and the myth of me being in control can be restored.

Question 1. What if I had been alone in the house with no one to stem the flow of water?

Question 2. What use theology when you need a plumber?

Question 3. What will happen when I try the tap for my next bath?

Question 4. Why not stick with the shower.................?

West of Scotland Wisdom on the Down Escalator

Getting on the escalator behind a bunch of cheerful young people out shopping with their carers.

Two of said carers on the step behind me

Conversation as follows

"Freezin' the day eh?"

"Aye. Ye no got gloves."

"Ah've got a pair, but ah cannae wear them."

"How no?"

"They're white gloves. Well, they were white gloves."

"Ye lost them or somethin'?"

"Naw. Josie wore them on the motorbike. They're no' white noo!"

The sympathetic and philosophically sound and anatomically precise advice of her pal as to what to do to Josie to make sure he didn't mess up her gloves any time in the near future, could not possibly be repeated on this blog renowned for its linguistic good taste - but it was so uproariously wicked...........

l

Why speling maters in bizness deelings

Just received paperwork relating to our mortgage.

The forms relate to an earlier phone conversation to ascertain key details.

"Please check and confirm the written details are correct", I'm instructed.

Amongst the details was the full title of my job.

Just to be certain I had been asked on the phone to spell out my work role.

Ok. That's easy. P-r-i-n-c-i-p-a-l    B-a-p-t-i-s-t    C-o-l-l-e-g-e

Got that? Principal Baptist College. Good.

So why am I now described as Principle Battist Collage.......?

Now a man of principle I believe myself to be

A battist sounds like the kind of person England need in their cricket team

And collage sounds more like arts and crafts than a form of theological education.

Oh and I am classified as my wife's wife - and she as my husband.

Glad we were asked to confirm and check.

Question - are they better at maths than spelling?

A year older than I was

Happy Birthday to me!

Someone asked if it was a big Birthday.

Big enough I said.

Next year is really big :)

No big extravangances this year - just bought a house!

Having favourite and not healthy food with a couple of friends

(Pizza party, Gu chocolate cake, plus some etceteras!)

Pizza home made, half an acre in size, varied toppings,

you get to build your own section before it goes in the oven.

Just put new batteries in the exercise bike to make sure the electronics give the accurate information during the long calorie burns that will be required over the next week.

Don't care - Home made Pizza is one of the blessings by which we have a proleptic anticipation of heavenly wellbeing and an eternal smile on the face.......