Conversations

 Bert: Where's that Holy Joe calendar that was on the freezer?

(A local congregation blesses us annually with a calendar featuring scenes from the Northern part of Ireland  complete with Biblical verses, also some tracts, and a CD of their pastor's sermons.)

Nelly: It's in the recycling bin.

Bert: What? Why did you do that?

Nelly: I do it every year.

Bert: But I needed a calendar for my room.

Nelly: You have a calendar. The Fane Valley calendar that Feely gave us, the one you said that Clint would be so jealous of because of all the pictures of fine Hereford bastes.

Bert: I think it was very negative of you throwing out the Gospelly calendar.

Nelly: I do it every year and you've never complained before.

I am a bit worried that Bert might have succumbed to Late-Onset Presbyterianism. I shared my worries with Hannah. She said,

Mum, I think you need to accept that as Bert grows older he will be turning into Pearlie. Don't be telling him I said that.

I said,

But I tell him that every single day.

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Later on that day, I'm in Tescos. There is a stand offering reduced bedding items, duvet sets, pillow cases etc. in shades of soft green that exactly match my bedroom. I'm drawn to it. There is a throw that tempts me. But I cannot see what price it is. I go to the help desk with the item and explain my predicament. The assistant is a lady of mature years, giving off an air of being completely scundered with Christmas and the New Year. She scanned the throw and said,

You may put that back on the shelf. It's not reduced. Twenty pounds. I wouldn't give that for it!

I did as she said. And loved her for it.

It's that time of the year again.

Busy, Busy Day

Two trips to the dentist. Please don't ask. And in between a woodland walk and lunch with first daughter.

Then an evening chat with second daughter, the Norfolk one. There were also brief convos with Anglo-Irish grandchildren, James and Emily. James and I discussed trampolines and I'm not sure what Emily and I were talking about. She might have blown me a raspberry.

Third daughter got her foxy door knocker screwed on.

An Urban Fox relocates to Cullybackey

Now she's in with the hipster-crowd on Columbia Road, E2.

Then Bert and I watched The Holocaust Memorial Day Commemorative Service which was dignified and moving. Even hopeful.

Afterwards, I said,

From now on I'm not letting anyone, anyone at all get away with saying anything racist, sectarian or sexist. What should I say to anyone who does say anything like that?

He says,

Tell them they should be affronted at themselves.

And then?

Tell them that they are the sort of people who would have stood by and let genocide happen.

The Scent of Witch Hazel

That Paulo Coelho piece on washing dishes has stayed with me. The thinking can be applied to any minor annoyance - for instance, it's a pet hate of mine that Bert gets toothpaste juice all over the mirror almost every day of his life. But why fret? It only takes moments to clean and I'm much better off pondering on how lovely it is to have the company of a funny, kind man even if he is a bit throughother in the bathroom and everywhere else.

Last autumn he planted a hamamelis (witch hazel) in the garden. It will flower in the winter time, he said. And it's scented. The smell will be glorious.

It flowered just before Christmas. Wait until we get a balmy day, he said. Wait until you smell it then.

So the balmy day came. Can you smell it, he said. Isn't it lovely?

I couldn't smell it. Not even when I got right up beside it and buried my nose in its flowers.

What does it smell like?

Flowery. Like Zoflora.

Like Zoflora?

I couldn't smell a thing. Was he gaslighting me? Yet, I worried. Am I losing my sense of smell? He smokes, I don't. It should be me that has the keener sense of smell.

Later that day I accidentally broke a bottle of Zoflora. I could smell that. Bert is sitting in the next room, smoking.

Can you smell that?

Yea! Zoflora.

I walked into the next room and I couldn't smell anything. Worrying. Yet when the cat shit in the wet room I got that whiff. Of course, I looked it up on the internet. It could be a cold. I haven't got a cold. It could be nodules. No thank you! It could be something totally drastic the same as the person had whose funeral I am going to tomorrow. Or Bert could be gaslighting me. But he hasn't the imaginative powers to do that. Nor is he mean enough. And he could smell the Zoflora from the next room.

I wonder what the hamamelis does smell like.