I am a walking cough;  a cough on two legs;  cough made flesh.  Cough.  Talking is a mistake.*  Eating is perilous.**  I think the arrival of the cough is supposed to indicate you’re improving.***  I’m too tired from coughing to tell.  Cough.

            But SHADOWS is still going.†

            I am however cranky†† about the bad news about ultrasonic jewellery cleaners.  I had thought part of the point of the ultrasonic gadgets is that they’re gentle on jewellery, possibly to the point of being so gentle they don’t really clean anything.  (I do know that you can’t do anything to pearls except smile at them and wear them against cashmere.)  I also didn’t know, or had forgotten, since I’ve barely worn my tourmaline ring in twenty years, that tourmalines are fragile.  Feh.  And yes, of course I can ask our nice local jeweller for advice about cleaning, but he will feel obliged to go all professional on me and I was hoping some of you guys might have the answer without the official hedging.†††  Ah well.  More little brushes and washing-up liquid in my future then.  I guess I can bear it.

            And before I bore you all to death . . . I am loitering frivolously with the thought of going ringing at Forza tomorrow.  This is a really bad idea.  I don’t have the time, I don’t have the energy, I have a novel to finish—the bells there are tricky sods, I already know Gemma is not going to be there, and I might find myself the only mediocre ringer present, with my usual additional burden of not being able to handle those particular bells and the supernumerary burden of the lurgy.

            Maybe I’ll just stay home, and post a recipe.   And cough. 

* * *

* Why do hellhounds insist on waiting till I say something?  Isn’t the mad waving of hands containing harnesses enough to tell them they should sit?  

** Eating is always perilous.  Ask Darkness and Chaos.  AAAAAUGH.  Having given the impression that he was on the mend last night, Chaos barely made it outdoors this morning to start the diabolical double-ended geysering all over again.  AAAAAAAUGH. 

***  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/09/new-year-health-regime-last  The headline in the paper version is more eye-catching to me in my present state:  ‘Dr Luisa Dillner Says Switch Off the TV, Stop Snacking and Start Exercising to Ensure You Feel Good Beyond January.’  I haven’t watched TV in YEARS,^ I am post-menopausal and my daily energy allowance is 3.5 calories and I NEVER snack, and I walk an hour and forty five minutes to two hours EVERY DAY.  WHY DO I HAVE THE LURGY WHEN I AM A PARAGON OF VIRTUE?^^ 

^ I talked to Hannah today.  “Hi,” I said.  Cough.  “Wow,” she said.  She still hasn’t read CHAOS.  After she does we’re going to read either JANE AUSTEN or CHARLES DICKENS by Claire Tomalin.  Or both, because we have so much time to read.  She was telling me about the TV programmes her daughters are watching and I’ve never heard of any of them.  I haven’t been deeply involved in a TV show since BUFFY.  No, really.  ANGEL?  Too gruesome.  FIREFLY?  Eh.  It had its moments, but it never entered my heart and mind the way BUFFY did.+  It’s probably safe to say that I wouldn’t be writing my first high school novel at fifty-nine if I hadn’t watched BUFFY at an embarrassingly advanced age which was nonetheless more impressionable than it should have been.  Which may or may not be a good thing.

            Oh, and the mysterious non-cooperation affliction of our de-cabled TV?  We changed the batteries in the remote and it still refused to climb away from BBC 1.  So there was a knock on the door one afternoon and there was the Nice Man who had installed our freeview box who wanted to ask if one of us would read his CHILDREN’S BOOK MANUSCRIPT.  Fortunately Peter answered the door and dragged him into the sitting room and thrust the remote at him.  There are too many buttons on the wretched thing.  And Peter is reading his manuscript.  I had my mouth all open to do my rant on this subject which is that ASIDE from the fact that I am a cranky cow, what I think about an unpublished manuscript has no more to do with its chances of getting published than what Chaos or Darkness thinks of it.++  Go start researching AGENTS.  What you need is an AGENT who likes your work.  But I was forestalled by Peter’s old-fashioned gentlemanliness AKA the man is nuts.  

+ And I’m the only person on the planet who didn’t/doesn’t like THE SOPRANOS or David Tennant. 

++ Er—you aren’t expecting us to eat it, are you? 

^^ Of course they also tell you to get seven to eight hours of sleep every night.  They must be joking. 

† And my email seems to have settled down . . . for the moment.  Sort of.  Or, possibly, not, and I just don’t know it.  It was even weirder than I told you yesterday, as I eventually found out when I stopped abusing my damaged larynx with screams for vengeance and had a look for the easily findable stuff that had reappeared.  When I got back to the mews and turned the old laptop on—which is the one I’ve been using the last several flu-demented days of filing and deleting—I was braced for what I’d just seen on the cottage machines.  But what had come back was NOT what I’d deleted that morning.  It was some OTHER stuff.  Whimper.

            So . . . I basically have no idea.  GIBBERGIBBERGIBBERGIBBER.  Right.  Enough of that.  I have a novel to finish.

            As to why I still use Outlook . . . I forget.  I will ask Raphael to remind me.  I think it’s to do with my apparently somewhat unusual requirements combined with my total lack of patience, interest in, or skill in understanding anything to do with computers.  I think it’s what they’re willing to support me with.  The bright spot, such as it is, is that the shiny new laptop with the vibrantly hated Win 7 on it did in fact discharge its battery by 50% overnight despite being turned off.  YAAAAY.  For once something goes wrong even when there is an archangel present.

            However, those of you hopefully offering advice about the hellhounds:  I think you’re probably late to the party.  Long-time readers have heard all this before.  My hellhounds are five and a half years old and I spent the first two of their years of life on this planet trying to find out why they had diarrhea all the time.  The answer is, as I eventually figured out with absolutely NO help from any of the fantastic and expensive panoply of vets, specialist vets, and specialist vets’ laboratories and techno-gizmo whatsits that I consulted, that they are allergic to all cereal grains.  (Pancreatitis, as someone mentioned on the forum but I can’t find it now, is one of the things they were temporarily diagnosed for.)  I’d tried an elimination diet nearly first thing, but I took them off brown rice while continuing to use barley and oats, and then swapped.  It took me a long time to think of all cereals.  But two years of eating something they were wildly and violently allergic to has left them with some permanent damage. 

            And the only time they won’t eat when I’m nearby is when they’re already looking for an excuse not to eat, and me being an ogre will do.  (I think this has more to do with the fact that they know I want them to eat and I’ll be testy if they don’t.)  I’m actually not very fond of the alpha theory.  Why would a good leader want his/her colleagues not to eat?  The alpha business as the great comprehensive answer to everything is less popular than it was, for which I am grateful.  When it first came crashing out it was The Solution, and I thought, since it clearly didn’t apply all that well to my experience, that I just had weird dogs.  Well, I do have weird dogs, but the alpha theory has also lost centre stage.  I am, however, a great fan of what works.  If something makes you and your dog(s) happy and healthy and comfortable and satisfied, then it’s the answer for you.  

†† Cough 

††† Note to self:  The Answer never exists.

            I can’t very well ask the fellow who bought the stones for us.  That was twenty years ago in Maine and I have more or less deliberately^ forgotten everything about him except that he was a self-absorbed twit. 

^ Ie making a virtue of Middle Aged Brain

Okay, that’s not your average mixture.  Let’s have the good news first: 

http://www.jodimeadows.com/?p=525  

YAAAAAAAAAAAY.  It’s alive! 

* * *

. . . We are now, I fear, about to plunge down a steep slope.  I was feeling a little odd last night but in my current state of whatever it’s always easy to put oddness down to a surfeit of quantum physics.*  Unfortunately not so in this case.  I nearly didn’t get out of bed this morning, except that there are hellhounds.  And SHADOWS.  Which is still due the end of the month.  I can’t frelling believe I’m ILL again.  I was ill in October, for pity’s sake**.  I’m not sure yet whether this is merely (!!!!) a sick cold or whether it’s going to insist on the full panoply of flu.  At the moment the jury is still out.  But I feel like stale death on toast.  AND CRANKY. 

            So I got out of bed at about . . . noon.  I barely fell down at all.  There are hardly any bruises from caroming off the four-poster on the way to the bathroom, which had mysteriously moved to a new location overnight.

            I got dressed.  I don’t guarantee that my tee shirt is on the right way around (who cares?  It’s covered up by six woolly jumpers) but I got the shoes on the right feet.***  I hurtled hounds.  Yes.  I did.†  Twice.†† 

            And I worked on SHADOWS.  I did. 

            . . . And this is as much blog entry as I can hold myself together for.†††  Good night.  May you sleep better than I’m likely to. 

* * *

*  Brief, according to my present state of non-brain, update on ABSOLUTELY SMALL:  It’s all maths.  I don’t know how even a crazed mathematician/physicist can have had the effrontery to look Average Reader in the face in the introduction and claim that understanding quantum mechanics does not require mathematics.  You are so lying, Professor Award-Winning Scientist Bloke.  It’s all maths.^ 

            What is true is something else he said in the introduction however:  that in most physics books the author says something like, blah blah blah blah, and here are the equations to prove it.  And you’re supposed to read the equations.  What’s different about ABSOLUTELY SMALL is that he then tells you the equations over in words.  The equations are still there.  You still have to deal with equations.  They may not look like a lot of equations to Mr/Ms Science Brain but they are totally equations.  But once he gets away from those poor cats waiting trembling in boxes for the Killing Look, he explains stuff pretty well.^^ 

            If you’re up for it . . . it’s pretty fascinating.  It’s so insane.  It’s so not Newtonian.^^^  I also just love that most of it you can’t know exactly.  HA HA HA HA ALL YOU CREEPY OVERBEARING SCIENCE BRAINS WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL.  HA HA HA HA HA.  Granted I still don’t get it, but I’m a lot happier with the concept of a world that cannot be known/measured exactly—can’t be nailed down.  This sounds a lot more plausible to me—more like my experience of the daily life this book is supposed to let me fit quantum theory into. ^^^^   And as he says, approximate doesn’t mean wrong:  it means . . . approximate. 

            Anyway.  It’s fascinating.  But it’s probably not a book you want to strain to your bosom when you stagger off to lie on the sofa with hellhounds and minister to your brain-destroying illness. 

^ Now that I’m committed, which is to say I’ve bought the thing, twice, audio and hard copy,+ I notice with a jaundiced eye that the three encomiums on the back cover about how This Is The Book We’ve Been Waiting for to Explain Quantum Mechanics in Daily Life are all by hard liners.  There are two scientists and a lawyer.  I’m sure he’s a very hard-line lawyer.  And probably the author’s best friend since childhood.  I want a hat check girl/boy or a brewer or ballroom dancing coach to tell me it changed their concept of life. 

+ I cannot believe that anyone would survive the experience by audio only.  If audio helps you focus, as it does help me, then the audio is worthwhile, and audible’s reader gets a medal.  But you’re still going to have to have the hard copy.  For the equations.  If it takes the reader too long to say one of the frellers, you’ll have forgotten the beginning by the time he gets to the end.  Lambda squared of the hypotenuse of the lobotomy . . . um. . . . 

^^ I do wish he’d stay away from real-world examples.  Even I know that a baseball is not a free particle, even when it’s left the field and is busy arcing over the stands.  Speaking of the physics of gliding, however, is anyone playing Tiny Wings?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6pT_2E5xI0   I don’t know what I think of the game, but I love the graphics. 

^^^ I have a new theory about why Newton was such an ugly piece of work as a human being.  It’s because in his secret heart he knew he was wrong.  

^^^^ Look at human nature.  Look at hellhound nature. 

** I think it was October.  Autumn anyway.  A few months ago.  And my stupid throat hasn’t recovered from the last assault which is why the Muddlehamptons are forgetting my name.  ARRRRRRRGH.  And here I am again with an inflamed throat, a throbbing head, and that interesting kind of fever that makes you feel like you’re made of boiling aluminium.  I RARELY GET THESE MALADIES.  RARELY.  Except lately ARRRRRRRRRGH. 

*** One right foot.  One left foot. 

† I also deserve a medal.  But so do they.  At the ripe old age of five and a half, although generally speaking the advent of maturity is a little thin on the ground, they are very good about waiting till I get my crap together, even when I seem to be having unreasonably more trouble than usual with said crap, and of hurtling slowly, with pauses, once we get outside.  I know the location of every public dustbin in this town . . . I also know the location of every bench, not that kerbs won’t do in a pinch.  They probably just think I’m having a bad ME day.  Multi-application hellhound training. 

†† And the dog minder is going to take them out tomorrow.  Another medal. 

††† I told an American friend that what I really needed, Peter having made some excellent turkey stock for the bodily nutrition side, was someone to tell me Really Bad American Jokes.  So she’s taken it upon herself to send me Really Bad American Jokes all day at intervals—for the support of my suffering soul.  Here’s my favourite: 

It’s the old west, and a newcomer to town sees there’s a big crowd gathered in the town square.  So he spots the local newspaperman, and asks him what’s going on.
          ”It’s a hanging,” says the newsman.  “They’re hanging Brown Paper Pete today.” 
          “Brown Paper Pete?  Why do they call him that?” asks the visitor. 
          “Because he always wears brown paper pants, a brown paper shirt, a brown paper hat, and carries a brown paper satchel,” says the newsman.
           “Wow,” says the visitor, “What are they hanging him for?” 
           “Rustling.” 

She’s just sent me this one, but she says that I’m sick enough to worry her if I think these are funny. 

Guy walks into a bar, sits down and orders a beer.  While he’s drinking, he hears a tiny voice say, “Hey mister!  I like your tie!”  He looks around, but doesn’t see anybody.  A few minutes later, the same tiny voice says, “Hey mister! Nice shirt!”  Again, he looks around, but there’s no one around except him and the bartender.  A little while later, the voice says, “Hey mister! You look like you’ve lost some weight!”  So the guy calls the bartender over and asks him what’s going on.  The bartender says, “Oh, that’s the peanuts.  They’re complimentary.”

So it’s twenty and a half years ago.  Peter and I have decided to get married.*  All the important stuff has already been decided, like that I’m going to emigrate.**  But that means we have to get married:  the fiancée’s visa only lasts for six months.  That’s not a problem:  we’re both old-fashioned:  we want to get married, and I’m the kind of old-fashioned that furthermore wants a proper ring to go with the deal.  Hey.  I like jewellery. 

            I’d originally assumed we’d find one suitably old and hoary and glamorous and possibly mad in an antique shop somewhere for an engagement ring;  wedding rings to be practical need to be plain and could be dealt with separately when we knew what the flashy one looked like.  We spent some time in this pursuit*** but we were finding nothing nearly unique and fabulous enough, I had to finish DEERSKIN and we wanted to get on with the moving and the new life and so on. 

            I can’t now remember who recommended this jewellery designer to us.  But we went to see him and explained we wanted something definitively Maine for me to wear in England.  He suggested Maine tourmalines—I think I didn’t know about Maine tourmalines at that point—and we eventually agreed that he’d design and make not only an engagement ring with the tourmalines, but wedding rings that would all fit together as part of the same design.  Peter felt this was mostly my show† and I did try to tell the bloke the sort of thing I liked:  flowing lines, mainly, swirly or woven or floral.  Maybe sort of art nouveau.  I liked the stuff in his shop.  And I liked the idea of the Maine designer working with the Maine tourmalines.

            We went back to see the stones when they arrived.  I don’t know if the designer bloke asked for triangular, or if that was what he could get.  Okay.  This would make it unusual.  And pink and green are excellent.

            We never saw any designs.  We saw the rings themselves when they’d already been cast (if cast is what I mean) and although they weren’t finished yet it wasn’t like we could go backward and say, uh, no, I meant Charles Rennie Macintosh, not Cecil Balmond.††   The wedding rings had these little hooks in the middle like the two ends of a twist tie bent together—and with the squared-off ends sticking out up and down your finger.  Can you say CATCHES THE FRELL ON EVERYTHING?  My tourmaline engagement ring fit down over the top ensnaring bend of my wedding ring, but that still left the sharp bottom edge to cause havoc and mayhem.  They were certainly . . . different.  But they were not sensible, and while many of the details of that whole era of the beginning of my life with Peter are blurry with exhilaration and terror, I do remember Peter telling the bloke that he works with his hands a lot, he spends hours every day in the garden, doing carpentry and cooking and he needs a ring that won’t get in the way.

            The man smiled and nodded.  These creative types.  They’re so in their own little world.†††

            But part of the swoop and breathtakingness of a runaway romance like ours is that you do kind of want it to glide as far as it can before it founders on some ineluctable aspect of ratbagging reality.  The wife in the attic.  The outstanding warrant.  The gerbil fetish.  The chocolate addiction . . .  And I don’t think the designer bloke was cheating us in any overt way:  I think we paid an honest amount for his time and his materials.  He just didn’t listen. 

            Almost the first thing we did after the wedding was over was . . . run to the nearest ordinary jeweller and buy two utterly plain smooth gold rings and wear them.  The barbed designer versions came out for fancy occasions and the rest of the time lived in my jewellery drawer.  Sigh.  This had not been the plan . . . and while the plain gold ones worked fine as wedding rings‡ I was rather wistful about my Maine tourmalines wasting their glory in a drawer.

            I think it was around our tenth anniversary that Peter said, for our twentieth, we’ll have the tourmalines reset.

            So that’s what we did.  And this time we went to a jeweller we’ve been going to for . . . twenty years.  He listens.  He made my fabulous silver whippet belt buckle.‡‡  And we saw designs.  We saw several designs.  I wanted my new ring to look like it fit next to the plaited-gold-with-tiny-diamond-chips ring that was my fiftieth birthday present‡‡‡ and which I now wear as my wedding ring.  And it does, doesn’t it?

            This time it worked. 

Mmmmmm. ::Beams::

* * *

* And our friends and family are all going, what?  Well, it was a somewhat precipitate decision.  We’d known each other maybe sixty hours in total.^   

^ I’ve told you how we met, haven’t I?  I was on a Literary Tour of England and he was one of the speakers. 

** Somebody had to.  Peter originally suggested we divide our time, but I knew—and I’m sure I was right—we’d both hate it.  And Peter had lived in this area of Hampshire over forty years at that point, had four kids, the first two grandchildren, three brothers and their families, eight first cousins and . . . I had a whippet, and a background as a peripatetic military brat. 

*** This was the occasion of one of our most important Bonding Moments.  THELMA AND LOUISE had been bigger than god, Spacelab and Boris Yeltzin for months, and it was playing at a theatre in Portland, Maine, where we’d gone to cruise antique jewellery shops.  I’ve told you this too, haven’t I?  We walked out.  We walked right after the dumb one spends the night with Brad Pitt the robber on the lam AND THE MONEY IN THE FRELLING DRAWER while the smart (!!?!??) one goes off to have a deep, sensitive evening with her supportive boyfriend.  

† He’s got a much better eye for jewellery than he thinks he does—see:  silver whippet belt buckle, below—but it’s true that this was my Big Symbolic Thing about leaving Maine to live in England with him. 

†† http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14027083   Okay, I don’t know what Balmond was doing twenty years ago.  Designing engagement rings, possibly. 

††† I do wonder if Designer Bloke already had this idea in his mind and he wanted to use it, whether the triangular stones inspired it, or what.  But he sure wasn’t too interested in the interface with his clients. 

‡ Anybody aware of the standard behaviour about such things of English gentlemen of Peter’s vintage will be gobsmacked that Peter wears a wedding ring at all.  Well.  Yes.  I don’t think it ever occurred to me that he wouldn’t—I wanted us both to wear them—and that’s what happened.  It wasn’t till later that I realised that Peter was humouring me about this too.^

            ^ I tell myself that if I have to choose I’d rather he wore a wedding ring than remembered to shut the door behind him.+  I perhaps tell myself this rather often.  But romance over practicality?  Sure.  Why do I have sixty rose-bushes in a garden the size of a large ping-pong table? 

+ This includes refrigerator doors.  Just by the way.

 ‡‡ I hope I’ve told you this story.  I told Peter I wanted something significant and wearable for my fortieth birthday. 

‡‡‡ Also bought in Maine.  Hmm.  My sixtieth is next year . . .

I’m not READY.  Hells, I’m not started.  I REALLY must get the Christmas decorations out of the attic at Third House . . . tomorrow.  Must.  Really.  Our nice little plastic tree has one rather serious disadvantage, which is that it’s a ratbag to put together* . . . and after Peter retires snarling** I will have to slam all the ornaments on at extreme speed.***  I ALSO HAVE TO WRAP ALL THE PRESENTS.  Well, all of Peter’s presents.  I withdraw further and further from the whole Christmas thing every year—the official clan and/or people I don’t know very well and/or owe favours to tend to get plants by post† and charity certificates of one sort or another.††  Peter still gets presents.†††  Which means WRAPPING.‡

            I have a novel to write.  In five weeks.‡‡

             . . . .I’m listening to Handel’s MESSIAH on Radio 3.  A while back, and I can’t remember which singing thread, there was a certain amount of giggling on the forum about how doing it yourself makes you more critical of other singers, and I meant to say, but I think I never did, that it also makes you more in awe of other singers.  How do they do that.  Wow.  Golly.  Swoon.  Adore.  Despair. †††  What I do find absolutely true however is that doing it myself, however feebly, engages me in other people’s performances to a degree that is sometimes frelling inconvenient.  It’s beginning to remind me of what a cow I can be about other people’s books—I don’t care if it won the Pulitzer, it’s not good enough—which is marginally more understandable in my professional field.  It’s just shameless when I start getting snippy-pernickety about singers.  But . . . this is a very nice MESSIAH, but where is the passion?  ‘He Was Despised’ shouldn’t be beautiful, it should make you cry.§  

* * *

* Peter does this.  But I’m not giving him much running-in time.  

** This is approximately the only time all year that I see Peter snarl. 

*** Fortunately there are rarely speed traps in Peter’s sitting room. 

† Which I’m extremely relieved to report seem mostly to have arrived with a loud simultaneous thump today.  This includes mine.^  One of which is clearly frost damaged and since there hasn’t been any local frost in several days^^ has to have happened en route somewhere.  SIIIIIGH.  The fact that any recipient of a little frill of festively decorated twigs that looks more like a voodoo fetish than a live plant will know that it’s not my fault is very little comfort.  

^ Since they have this system for the orderer to order something for herself by ticking ‘myself’ during check-out, you’d think they could follow this through so that ‘myself’ doesn’t receive a card that says, ‘look inside for a message from the person who gave you this gift!’ and in my case says ‘Happy Christmas, Mrs McKinley Dickinson!’ which begs the question slightly about ‘to’ and ‘from’.  ^^^ 

^^ Except the imaginary kind that gives the indoor jungle something to complain about the nights I don’t bring it in.  At the moment I can’t bring it in, the top of the hellhound crate is covered with not-yet-wrapped Christmas presents.  One them is kind of . . . large.  No frost tonight.  NO FROST TONIGHT.  ARE YOU LISTENING?  —It was tipping it down earlier, creating a bottleneck of wet, cranky, last-minute-shopping people midtown even of little New Arcadia.  Hellhounds and I sat in Wolfgang, listening to the rain drumming on the roof and feeling smug, having returned from our hurtle about forty-five seconds before the heavens opened.+  I am now paying for this complacency, as the frelling weather has cleared off and the temperature is dropping . . . and dropping . . . ++ 

+ I spent that forty-five seconds chatting to Phineas, who encouraged me to let the air out of the tyres of Mr Gormless, should I be so unfortunate as to have contact with his misdeeds again, and whom Phineas apostrophises as not the full shilling.  

++ Speaking of plants, Katinseattle wanted to know about this one from Gemma’s gift:  http://www.hardys-plants.co.uk/product.asp?plant=131  

^^^ There’s a Schrodinger’s cat opportunity here, although in this instance the cat is permitted to be alive in both its states. 

†† I give driblets and drablets all over the shop including the obvious big guns like Amnesty, Greenpeace, Medecins sans Frontieres, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children—insert your forty-six favourite charities here.  But I do like to give slightly cheerful things at Christmas, although I realise this is the wrong attitude for celebrating the birthday of someone who was willing to be crucified in the hope it would do the rest of us some good. 

            Admirable intentions don’t always translate into reliable admin, and there are several Big Holy Green Guys I will no longer touch with a barge pole, but for anyone who’s interested, here are a few UK furry-critter organisations that I’ve been subscribing to successfully for years.

http://shopping.rspb.org.uk/c/VirtualGifts.htm?utm_source=rspbwebsite&utm_medium=navigation&mediacode=T06ITH0221

What they offer you varies from year to year, but I’ve put in an awful lot of hedgerows.  

http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/sponsor/default.aspx?view=all

Lurchers and sighthoundy critters never seem to need sponsoring, or not for long.  At present I sponsor Hamish.  I admit I have just a flicker of doubt about these guys:  your sponsoree never dies, they’re always placed with a private owner and so don’t need sponsoring any more.  Really?  

http://www.guidedogsgiving.org.uk/sponsorapuppy/?gclid=CJju7qCnma0CFUUPfAodYFhsmg

I’ve been doing this so long and they roll over so fast I can’t remember the name of the current half-grown critter.  But the cuteness factor is extreme.  Not only do you receive regular ‘pupdates’ of your own protégé but they send you stuff like the Guide Dog Puppy Calendar every year which is all little fat furry darlings and is a good thing to stare at while you’re waiting for your first cup of tea of the day to turn black. 

              And I’d belonged to the Bat Conservation Trust for years before I realised I had a problem.  I hadn’t noticed you can now adopt bats.  I, of course, don’t need to.^

http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/adopt_a_bat.html 

^ Hee hee hee http://www.bats.org.uk/ecards.php?action=ecard&id=43 

††† So do a variety of friends.  But rarely at Christmas.  Or at their birthdays.  When I get around to it.  Sometimes it takes years.  There’s this box in the corner of my bedroom. . . . 

‡ I suppose the next boundary to withdraw over is wrapping . . . but stuff looks so pretty after it’s been wrapped.^  I’m hyperventilating slightly about Peter’s Very Large Present however.  It’s . . . Very Large. 

^ Aside from questions of blog photos. 

‡‡ Only four people showed up for tower practise tonight YAAAAY.  We hardy few barely waited the obligatory quarter-hour before declaring a bust and all rushed downstairs and out into the night.  The other three may have gone to the pub.  I went home to SHADOWS.  Which is still going well, except for the ‘five weeks’ part. 

‡‡‡ Why don’t I take up knitting?^ 

^ I haven’t ripped out the leg warmers lately.  Because I’m cravenly knitting hellhound squares. 

§ Sung in this case by one of my new heroes, Iestyn Davies.  How embarrassing.  But . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH3E64G0oCI

Bronwen emailed me the end of last week that she was going to be in this area on Monday, and could she drop in?  Sure, I emailed back.  I have my voice lesson Monday afternoon, but we can go ringing with Colin in the evening, if you like.  I can meet you at the cottage after my lesson, at 6:30 or so.

            . . . I was hoping I might come to your lesson, she answered.

            WHAT?  ARE YOU FRELLING JOKING?

            I was, in fact, so blitherblathered, nonplussed and gobsmacked by this insane and unexpected request that I couldn’t immediately think of what to say, other than NO.  AND NEVER DARKEN MY DOOR AGAIN WHILE YOU’RE AT IT.*  Since I’m fond of Bronwen I restrained this natural impulse and . . . emailed Nadia.  Do you have a policy about people sitting in?  I said.  Do you . . . by any chance . . . FORBID it?**

            This was happening last night at about two a.m.*** when I am perhaps not at my best anyway.†   For some reason†† Nadia hadn’t answered by the time I crawled out of bed again (later) this morning . . . and meanwhile the hours were ticking by and Bronwen was climbing in her car and turning the key in the little hole††† and . . . and . . .

            And when I went to warm up today with my piano at the mews I couldn’t sing at all.  Here I had been comforting myself that at least yesterday’s indisposition (which has much lessened, thank you) had had nothing to do with my throat . . . and I still couldn’t sing.  I was producing these nasty horrible thready little noises.‡  Ugggh. 

            Beginning to panic now I texted Nadia saying, perhaps you didn’t see my email (which I sent at about 3 a.m. and you’re probably feeding your kid her oatmeal before facing your first student of the day and haven’t checked your inbox) and thank the gods this time she answered, and in Best Professional Manner, that she did not have a policy about sitters-in and she did not object to teaching with an audience, but that she felt that unless this was a run up to an exam or a performance it was not helpful to the student and advised against.  YAAAAAAY.  I pretty well burnt my fingers racing to email Bronwen:  NOOOOOOOOO.‡‡

            Then we’d managed to get the lesson time crossgartered somehow so I was waiting‡‡‡ for half an hour before Nadia was ready for me which did not help my tension level any. §  So when it was finally my turn I went in and, setting my knapsack down and removing my music as if I were an insufficiently tested beta model, squeaked that I had been ill yesterday and today I can’t sing at all.  When I admitted upon questioning that it had been a Digestive Issue Nadia said, well, of course.  The bottom half of your body isn’t speaking to the top half, so you’re not getting any of the support you need not to sound thin and reedy.  Lie down on the floor and breathe.

            So I lay down on the floor and breathed.§§

            And, after that, the lesson went pretty well.§§§

            At the end she said, your homework for the next fortnight is to go home and ENJOY singing all these songs you’ve been working so hard on.  ENJOY.  You know about ENJOY, right?

            Oh.  Kind of.

            And then I came home# and finally met up with poor Bronwen.  And we went ringing at Glaciation.##  We came back to the mews for supper and then she knitted while I got on with SHADOWS.  It’s very . . . shadowy.  In a good way.  I hope.   

* * *

* And you can post that knitting book you borrowed back to me.  

** Please.  Please forbid it.  Please.  

*** Having spent an unhealthy amount of time bringing the jungle indoors again.  No frost tonight.  Yaaaaaaay. 

 † I’d also just found out that I’d been a thundering and inexcusable scoundrel to a harmless and inoffensive member of the human race and was reeling from the karmic backlash.  This does not serve to focus the mind in a positive way. 

†† I realise this will come as a shock to all of you, but not everyone lives by their email, their texts, their DMs, and their tweets.  Fancy.  And a substantial number of these non-virtual people have children still too young for email, texts, DMs, and Twitter.  Very real, small children.  

††† I spent SIXTY ONE QUID filling Wolfgang’s petrol tank today.  SIXTY.  ONE.  QUID.   Strongest argument for internet shopping that I know.  The next time I fall afoul of one of these barking and berserk sites that demand four passwords that add up to the square root of 19^ and then tell you that according to numerology your birthday declares you to be an axe murderer and/or a bad financial risk and therefore they are rejecting you and the credit card you rode in on . . . I will whisper to myself ‘sixty one quid’ and persevere. 

^ 4.358898943540674  http://www.math.com/students/calculators/source/square-root.htm 

‡ It’s all relative.  Nastier, horribler, threadier.  And definitely littler, which in the circumstances is just as well. 

‡‡ Under most ordinary conditions I have no problem saying No, and please fall in a large mud puddle on your way out.^  But I know that I am a neurotic wet^^ about singing and performing, and—I also understand being interested in the process.  What happens in a voice lesson with a good teacher is just interesting, and never mind if the student sounds like a hamster someone just sat on.^^^  I ought to want to spread the voice-lesson joy around.  Well, I do.  Just not in a way that involves someone having to listen to me sing. 

^ And may you be wearing drycleanable-only.  

^^ Possibly a neurotic muddy.  And my ego absolutely needs the delicate cycle. 

^^^ Shrill and flat. 

‡‡‡ Knitting.  I’m producing a very nice series of hellhound squares in varying textures of knit and purl.  This activity is interspersed with ripping out the first half-dozen rows of leg warmer again. 

§ Possibly the small-child-amusing CD of small-child songs Stella was listening to in a rapt and pensive manner had something to do with this.  When someone is trying to lisp breathlessly and, as you knit, wait for your voice lesson and try not to think about the half a page of SHADOWS you could have got through in this half hour, you are thinking (testily) that they are probably getting paid for the noise they’re making, and here you are paying for the privilege of trying to sound less like this. 

            Okay, I have never lisped.  And I’m only breathless when I forget, uh, to breathe.  Still. 

§§ Her mother came in with a cup of tea for her while this was going on.  Don’t worry, said Nadia, she’s used to my students lying on the floor.

§§§ I was probably just really grateful that it was only the two of us.^ 

^ And the cat. 

# Muttering about sixty-one quid 

## Where I was pretty much a disaster on all fronts SIIIIIIIGH.  I haven’t really got enough brain for a voice lesson and a tower practise in the same day.  Especially when there’s a little matter of a novel to finish in six weeks.

Today has been a stomachache, punctuated by way too many bells.  And—when I’m feeling this rough—there are also too many hellhounds.  Importunate they all are.   Bong!  Bark!*  I fell out of bed this morning aware that all was not well in the nether regions but assuming (vigorously**) it wasn’t serious.  Absorbed my first megadram of caffeine.  Registered that strange green fog hovering over hellhound crate was a jungle.***  Oh.  Eeep.  Further register that it’s cold out there.†  Extra reasons for objecting to getting up this early.††  Six woolly jumpers and two pairs of long johns.  These prove useful when the Black Knight at the Ford leaps out from behind a geranium and demands my sword or my life.  Don’t be daft, I say.  This is my kitchen.  There aren’t any rivers, with or without fords, in a kitchen. 

            There aren’t jungles in kitchens either, says the Black Knight, pressing the unpleasantly sharp end of his long pointy sword against my breastbone, which is protected only by six woolly jumpers, which are nonetheless better than nothing.  Now, are you going to fight me or am I going to run you through for a lily-livered coward?

            I’m going to set my fierce, slavering hellhounds on you, I say.

            Hellhounds? says the Black Knight, blanching.  Oh, all right, have it your way.  Are you sure you wouldn’t like a nice little set-to?  It would wake you right up.  Much better than caffeine.

            Not today, thanks, I say.  But feel free to stop round for a cup of tea some time. 

            . . . I was a minute or two late to the tower, but the other three of us were still standing shivering in front of the electric fire so that was all right.  We did eventually have six pairs of hands, but . . . it’s the week before Christmas, we have three service rings today, it would be nice to have a bit more than the skeleton crew. 

            After Ring #1 I went home and viewed the jungle.†††  Now beginneth the Great Windowsill Wedge.  How many leafy green pots of the cold-allergic can I winter over with the least amount of extra nonsense?‡  After about the six hundred and forty-third, however, which I hung in a sling dependent from a curtain rail, ‡‡ I had to lie down for a bit, and when I got up again to attend to hellhound obligations, somehow or other . . . the jungle sitting on top of the hellhound crate was just as thick and impenetrable as before.

            Sigh.

            So we hurtled, and then hellhounds had lunch and I did not, and then I stared at SHADOWS for a while and thought about late-mid-life career changes‡‡‡.  Then I went to ring the carol service at Old Eden.  Can’t you beg off? said Peter (and various friends by email).  No, I said.  We’ll be lucky if we have six ringers for the six bells.  In the event we had five to begin with, and I pleaded to be let off ringing up, and allowed to stick to the treble.§   I left afterward without finding out if the mince pies were going to be offered to the bell ringers.§§

            Then it was to do all over again at New Arcadia.  Five ringers for eight bells—eventually a sixth.  But no seventh and no eighth.  Can I ring a touch of Plain Bob Doubles while fading rapidly into the Shadowwraiths’ realm?§§§  Afterward I tottered back to the cottage and brought back in again everything I hadn’t managed to fit on windowsills earlier.  Plus several things I’d remembered too late last night and fossicked around for today . . . which do seem mysteriously still alive.  And got rid of a few more indoor slugs.

            Finally re-hurtled (relatively) patient hellhounds at about 7:30 . . . and it’s already ice underfoot.  Crunch crunch crunch iiiieeeeeeeee. 

            Have risked supper.#  I should go home early, before the roads get too exciting.  But . . . maybe . . . I’ll . . . just . . . lie . . . on . . . the . . . sofa . . . for . . . a . . . bit . . . first. 

* * *

* I’m not sure I’ve ever recognised how similar bells and hellhounds really are.  Indecipherable minds of their own.  Mostly silent and quiescent but alarming when roused.  Needs yanking.  Needs regular yanking or grows cranky and morose.  Weighs more than you think when hits the end of the lead.  Unpredictably unbiddable—except you can more or less prophesy that they’ll be at their worst if anyone you want to make a good impression on is present.  Hates cold weather.  Medical bills expensive.  Not interested in food.^ 

            I rarely take bells to lie on the sofa with me however. 

^ Although in fact I have a hellhound beleaguering me at this moment.   Darkness is having a little holiday from not eating. 

            We haven’t eaten since yesterday, he says.

            You’ve eaten twice since yesterday, I reply.  Once at about 2 a.m. and lunch.

            Yesterday, he says.  You’re always moaning about how bad your memory is.  Lunch was yesterday.+  And furthermore, you’re eating chicken.  You can’t expect me to not eat since yesterday gracefully when you’re eating chicken.           

+ Hellhound time.  Okay, I wonder if we can cross it with Mandelbrot sets to get that thirty-six hour day? 

** This would be the last time all day I have been vigorous.  

*** Full of wildlife.  We won’t get into the slugs-in-the-kitchen situation, my stomachache is enough reality for one day . . . AAAAAAAUGH.  EXTRA PROTEIN JUST DISCOVERED IN MY BROCCOLI.^  Sodding flangdangling organic.  If this stuff were sprayed with Toxic Planet Death I wouldn’t have these problems. 

^ This is actually when it happened.  I am not juggling to make a better story. 

† So at least the indoor aspect of the jungle was worthwhile. 

†† Although when hellhounds finally got their first hurtle at about noon the footpaths were still frozen.  Crunch crunch crunch crunch. 

††† And the slugs.  And the Biggest Caterpillar in the Universe which is busy eating the geraniums in the sitting room ARRRRGH.  I found one Nearly the Biggest Caterpillar about a week ago and was hoping that was the end.  But no.  And the crap it’s leaving is about the size of ball-bearings at this point.  Why can’t I SEE it??  I’ve started having uneasy thoughts about those trompe d’oeil pictures where (for example) the hero is looking around for the dragon and is standing in the dragon’s mouth. 

‡ How much of it is still alive?  How much of it is planning on staying alive?  How many Caterpillars that Ate Brooklyn and Are Eyeing Up Birmingham are lurking among the foliage?  After all, there was a Black Knight.  And his sword.  And his horse.  Oh, didn’t I mention the horse? 

‡‡ Note to self:  prop curtain rails.  There are now four hundred and twelve plant pots dangling from them, variously attached. 

‡‡‡ I fancy something simple and straightforward this time.  Experimental physicist.^  Formula-one driver.  Nursery-school teacher. 

^ I’d be rubbish at the theoretical. 

§ This didn’t work, of course.  I was bumped off the treble—oh, you’ll be fine on the two, said Niall—as soon as our only-rings-treble sixth ringer appeared for a quick pull between passing around the mince pies downstairs.   This is one of those testing-your-auto-pilot moments.  Can you ring a touch of Grandsire doubles when your stomach feels like the Black Knight did run you through with his sword?^ 

            It was worse when we—even more briefly—had a seventh ringer.  Wonderful, I said, I can sit out.  Oh, Robin, said Niall.  Would you please stand with Monty?  —GODS.  I’d rather frelling ring than mind someone.^^

            Speaking of Niall . . . three service rings did rein him in a little, but he still said to me as we were leaving Old Eden, with forty-five minutes till ringing for the carol service at New Arcadia:  We’ve only got forty-five minutes.  We could teach Monty to ring handbells. . . .

            Does Monty want to learn to ring handbells? I said, grasping at straws.

            I haven’t the least idea, said Niall.

            Whereupon I ran for Wolfgang. 

^ Today?  Yes.  Tomorrow?  I hope to be recovered tomorrow.  I would rather go wrong and have no excuse than stay right and have this excuse. 

^^ Nobody died.  

§§ But see previous footnote. 

§§§ Yes.  But I wouldn’t want to count on it. 

# Have fed hellhounds.  They ate.

Read as given that I was running late.  So I was trying to sing myself in toward singing again for Oisin, and because I was worrying that he might suggest recording me this week* it was not going too well.  But I was, I thought, beginning to get somewhere finally.  Non lo diro col labbro.**  Tra la. 

            And then the phone rang.  It was Raphael.  You may remember that my workhorse laptop has chosen this moment, when I am both running out of money and writing a novel in five months***, to begin dying.  It does seem—thoughtfully—to be allowing me enough time to install its successor, but I am guessing that I had better not hang about either.  Raphael was ringing to say that having ordered what we had decided on, and having been informed that it would be promptly dispatched . . . there was a follow-up message that that particular model was now out of stock, which, in the computer world means permanently, but they would be would be delighted to supply, blah blah blah.  The problem is that Blah Blah Blah has a smaller frelling hard drive.  I want more memory than god.  That’s the plan.  That is in fact the CHIEF AND ONLY plan.  More memory than god.  And here they are messing with me.  Mind you, the lesser creature has nearly more memory than god—but I remember that this computer had more memory than god four years ago, and that didn’t turn out well.†  So Raphael then had to go patiently through my alternatives while I howled and drummed my heels. 

            A decision was finally reached—for the computer that has more than more memory than god, which would please me more if it didn’t involve another £150 which I can ill afford.  But I’m only too sure I’d hit the wall with the smaller one.††

            So I put the phone down, went back to the piano and . . . had NO voice at all.  It might have been two years ago, before I’d so much as met Blondel.  ARRRRRRGH. 

* * *

* Left to myself my answer will always be, Noooo!  Nooooooooo!  The immediate conclusion of that one is never having started voice lessons in the first place, and it’s too late for that.  Therefore the less attractive option is to face the Nooo Monster down.  This is a bit like eradicating bindweed^ by glaring at it. 

^ http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=241 

** I have a new insane purpose.  —Aside:  I don’t know how professional singers do it.  Well, they do it by (a) being good at it and (b) spending professional amounts of time at it.  I’m talking about learning lyrics.  Once a melody is more or less lodged in my head it (more or less) stays there so long as I keep using it and check with the piano occasionally.^  Lyrics are another matter.  I sing a lot on vowel sounds anyway^^ because they help me make the noise I’m looking for—and my warm-ups are pretty much all vowels.  But when you’re singing to, you know, sing, la-la-la^^^ is unsatisfactory.  The common childhood tendency to sing all the time till this is hammered out of you by sensitive grown-ups who can’t bear the racket# is reasserting itself in me lately.##  This means I want more stuff to sing.  Which means learning lyrics. 

            I have now sung frelling Non lo diro col labbro waaaay often enough to know the lyrics off by heart without thinking, but do I?  Only if I’m not thinking.  The moment I notice that’s what I’m doing they disappear like chocolate chip cookies at a picnic.   I was out singing and hurtling recently### during a break from listening to BRIEFER HISTORY while I tried to bend spacetime and my brain into an algorithm for comprehension% and sang straight through Non lo%% including the two lines in the middle where it suddenly CHANGES!!!! %%%  My first thought was that I must have fudged them, but no, I could kind of taste their having been there on my tongue, you know?  —But could I do it again, now that I was paying attention?  No of course not.  So I’m now wandering around with a photocopy that I can fold up in a pocket, muttering Forse con le faville dell avide pupille . . .

            Oh, and Se Tu M’ami, which I treated you to my fabulous phonetic version of?$  AAAAAAAAUGH.  I can get through the words or I can get through the rhythm.  Not both.  The tune at that crucial point is undemanding, but trying to squash or prolong the syllables to the beat is a . . . giant throbbing neon ratbag. 

            Although my problems are not all Italian.  I can sing She’s Like the Swallow and Down By the Salley Gardens without missing too many words, even out hurtling, but I had this clever idea of getting Cold, Haily, Windy Night out again and learning the rest of the verses.  It’s one of these songs—as I have already discovered—that is harder than it looks, but despite being another of these miserable betrayed-love songs, it doesn’t sing like that, and it’s great thundering fun.  But by my frelling hemidemisemiquavers, trying to make the lyrics hang with the tune is AMAZINGLY DIFFICULT.  

^ Hmmmm.  I wonder if there’s a pitch pipe app for iPhones?  There certainly ought to be.  Must check.  In a minute.

^^ On Nadia’s advice I have bought a copy of another standard text, Vaccai’s Practical Method of Italian Singing.  Nadia said to learn just the first exercise, which I am endeavouring to do.  But in a doubtless laudable desire to stress singing Italian correctly with lots of vowels and as few consonants as possible, Vaccai has broken up all the words, rather than syllabically, with the consonants all clumped together, instead of next to their vowels where they belong.  I see what he’s getting at—given that Nadia has been trying to make me give more space to the VOWELS for ten months now—but it makes me crazy.  I can’t read it at all.  So at the moment I’m singing aaaaaah-eeeeeeeee, and I’ll put the frelling words in next week, having checked with Nadia that there are no nasty surprises lurking in the articulable shrubbery anywhere. 

^^^ Or aaaaaaah-eeeeeee-aaaaaaah 

# It took me a while to comprehend that, generally speaking, the melody is not considered an optional extra.  By then it was too late. 

## And if I’m going to strengthen the beast sufficiently to go back to the Muddlehamptons+ and not bomb out the moment I take on two germs and the left eyebrow of a virus, the more singing the better.  

+ And I’d better go back to the Muddles.  All other things being equal~ I’ve already paid my annual frelling membership.  

~ Which they aren’t, of course.  I’m not sure even I, with my gift for fantasy, could keep taking voice lessons in a vacuum.  

### Having first checked there was no one anywhere near.  If the hedgerow rabbits don’t like it, they can move to a different hedgerow for the time it takes us to hurtle past. 

% FAIL.  I find it interesting, the depth of the crevasse you fall in the moment you trade in your comfortable, fuzzy, stuffed-toy, having-read-a-lot-of-hard-SF-when-you-were-younger, English-lit-major ‘understanding’^ of something like thermodynamic entropy or frelling relativity for a flounder and bumble toward some genuine, however layperson and superficial, grasp of the real stuff.  The chief thing I’ve learnt thus far is that I know why I was a lit major.  

^ Which is to say clueless familiarity 

%% MULTITASKING!!!! YESSSSS! 

%%% I was so startled I stopped, and hellhounds promptly hit the ends of their leads.  And turned to look at me aggrievedly.  They know they’re not supposed to hit the ends of their leads, but I’m supposed to warn them if I plan to stop suddenly. 

$ abigailmm wrote:  My parents went on a tour . . . One stop was a small chapel in a village in Czechoslovakia (this was back when it still WAS Czechoslovakia.) . . . the entire village turned out . . . The children sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” . . . Afterward, my father picked up a piece of paper that had fallen on the ground. It was the lyrics, like your Italian, rendered phonetically for a Czech speaker! . . . 

This isn’t a treasured family heirloom or anything, is it?  I’d love to . . . er . . . read it.  

*** Theoretically 

† I want to be able to watch BUFFY on the new one for more than the first year or so, when it runs out of memory.  

†† Who needs to eat?  Not me.  Sigh. 

I didn’t go to SIEGFRIED yesterday.  So please don’t all fall on me at once and tell me how great it was.  I’ve already had several emails and a tweet to this effect.  Okay, I can still hope they’ll release it on DVD. . . . So, why didn’t I go, when you all know that I was really looking forward to it?  Because I got up yesterday morning and realised I’d never survive six hours sitting in a theatre seat—even a theatre seat on the aisle, which is what I always book ahead to get.*  I don’t know how many of my aches and pains are the ME, rheumatism—which, if you’re asking me, is on the same spectrum**—having fallen off horses too many times in my youth, the straightforward wear and tear of being almost sixty years old, or my previous incarnation as a warrior woman.  You can only take so many lances and sword points through your soft bits before there’s a permanent cumulative effect which may linger on through several ensuing lives.  But the combination of the rain, the change of season and, I suspect, the stress level of trying to write a book in five months***, has kind of ganged up on me lately.  Bleagh.  Etc. 

So since I’m in kind of a snarly mood anyway, I thought I’d do what I said recently I was going to, which is talk a little about how I cope with having ME—very much on the understanding that this is only how I do it.  This is crucial.  Everyone is different anyway, but ME/CFS is even slipperier than most diagnoses.  If you have measles, you’ll probably have red spots, and if you have Bell’s palsy one side of your face will probably be mostly paralysed (although it usually goes away again).  If you have ME . . . well, you’ll probably be tired, but that’s not too helpful.  But the following is more or less what I sent to the writer of one of the little flood of emails I’ve had over the last few weeks about living with ME, thinking (as I said to her too) that I’d also put it on the blog.  I’ve said most of this to you before, but here it is all in one place: 

. . . The problem with all the ME/CFS stuff is that it’s so individual, which is one of the reasons both the doctors and the scientists have such trouble with it (and are inclined to blame the victims to let themselves off the hook).  I’d recommend finding a health practitioner of some variety who has a lot of experience in ME/CFS/fibromyalgia/etc and try and get the diagnosis so you know you’re headed in the right direction.  (And then cross-examine your expert for useful info.)   You’re on the right track, going to the practitioners you’ve gone to [acupuncturist, herbalist, etc, but she says ‘nothing has stuck’]—but if you have ME, that’s what you’re stuck with, and all the help in the world is only going to make it easier to cope, it’s not going to cure it.  (Or that’s my view.  I think it’s like having one leg shorter than another or weak lungs made worse by repeated pneumonia.  You can learn ways to cope and to strengthen, but the facts are still what they are.) 

There are some links in the ‘about’ section on my blog.  The three therapies that hold me together are:  taking handfuls of vitamins and minerals and other supplements, Bowen massage therapy, and homeopathy.  Beyond that I take each day as it comes.  You’re going to have to do your own research because whatever you’ve got, it isn’t what I’ve got.  But yes, most of my coping mechanisms are self help—my supplement list is my own, cobbled together from professional recommendations, picking friends’ brains, a lot of reading, and the one-rat experiment of swallowing lots and lots of pills.  I’ve been my own homeopath for years, and although this is frowned on for obvious reasons†, I’m afraid I’ve done myself more good than any of the homeopaths I paid money to did.  Bowen massage is dependent, as so many things are, on the practitioner;  there happens to be a really good one not too far from me.  

Here’s a tiny place to start:  what first got me up off the sofa when I went down hard with acute ME is magnesium.  Most of us are magnesium-deficient and can use some supplementation anyway.  Read up on all of this.  Do NOT repeat NOT take anything I say as gospel merely because I’m saying it works for me.  The other vitamin(s) I’d recommend considering starting with is B complex.  I take a B complex plus some additional B6 and B12.  The magnesium is both crucial to maintaining ANY energy level at all for me, and also really helps the pain.††  The B vitamins mellow me out (to the extent that I can be mellowed out which is probably not visible to the naked eye) and are also crucial for pain.  I’d be pretty much crippled without mag and B.  And you really do not want to be dependent on ibuprofen or any other OTC pain killer.  

Homeopathy is a gigantic subject.  Totally worthwhile, but it will pretty much suck up and transform your life if you study it.  Warning, however, it’s pretty rough if entirely self-taught.  If you choose to go this route you’ll need some help at some point.  (I eventually went back to college.)  

And yes, it’s a ratbag that you have to do all this research when you feel like decayed faecal matter most of the time.  But that’s the way it goes. 

Good luck. . . . ††† 

*  *  *

* So yes.  When I bail on an opera, I’m also losing money.  But I wouldn’t risk going at all if I couldn’t get an aisle seat.  I can sit (more or less) still for something average-film length (GHOSTBUSTERS, say), but not an opera, even acknowledging the existence of intermission(s). 

** I think I’ve told you this before:  when I first started having achy joints I thought, Say what?, because no one in my biological family has rheumatism.  Then I thought, resentfully, that it was probably just the ME finding new ways to goad me—but there’s at least one more possibility.  There’s the theory that those of us who were regularly stuffed up the wazoo with antibiotics as children are likely to go on to develop rheumatism in later life.  That would be me.  I had constant head colds that turned into bronchitis and on one still vividly recalled occasion, pneumonia, and I swear I was less often off antibiotics than I was on them through my childhood and most of my teens, although this is probably an exaggeration.  The irony is that—as I found out many, many, many, many years later—I’m also milk-protein intolerant, which would explain the constant head colds.^  But I was a kid in the days when (a) cows’ milk was good for you^^ and the more you drank the better it was and (b) antibiotics were the perfect cure-all.  Feh.  It’s not all bad though.  I’m glad I was born in the era after they discovered about soap and washing your hands. 

^ And speaking of antibiotics, there was the tetracycline I was on for ten years as an adult for pizza-faced-ness.  Which unsightliness also disappeared immediately when I went off dairy . . . which was after I had to come off the tetracycline when I developed an allergy to antibiotics.  Which is a long story.  But it’s no wonder my immune system is whacked. 

^^ Even then of course some people were so allergic to cows’ milk they positively couldn’t have it.  But they were assumed to be poor sad things who would never grow up to be Superperson, or Popeye. 

*** Yes, thank you, it continues to go rather well.  Barring the fact that I wish it were due in June.  Or August. 

† You can’t possibly have a clear, unbiased, clinical view of yourself. 

†† I once finished a bottle of magnesium tablets and for some reason forgot to start a new one.  By the end of the week I could barely move and couldn’t imagine what was wrong with me.  And finally noticed that my—ahem—tote bag of vitamins did not contain magnesium.  I opened a fresh bottle and was—er—as fine as I ever am by about three days later. 

††† Yesterday and today, as I was grumping about the place thinking about SIEGFRIED, I was thinking about my bottom line in terms of mental health.  But I want to go to bed.  I’ll put it in another post.

Yesterday’s luck wasn’t all bad.  I got my post up earlier than usual*, noticing in a distant, detached way** that it was sheeting with rain and going back to the cottage was going to be interesting.***  I was standing at the sink doing the last washing-up and watching the solid wall of water sliding down the kitchen window when . . . the lights went out.  About a second later there was an almighty crack of thunder and lighting in Jehovan, Greater-Trump mood.  Gleep.   I was in the process of working out where the nearest torch† was—you may have noticed the way ordinary reality takes on strange whorls and slipstreams in sudden near-absolute dark—when the lights came back on again.††   My first thought had been for the hellhounds—especially the part about tripping over them in the blackness while I’m still deaf from the thunder††† and cannot hear the click of claws on lino.  But hellhounds don’t mind thunder, lightning or fireworks all that much, although Chaos has been known to try and chase the funny lights/shadows of the local Guy Fawkes celebration which teems in the windows at the mews.  Last night they remained crashed out in the dog bed.

            My second thought was for my computer.  I Have Perhaps Mentioned that I am about to buy a new workhorse laptop because this one is dying.  It has been stalwart and uncomplaining for several years and in laptop terms it’s about 200 years old and it has withstood an awful lot of keyboard-bashing when Word, Outlook or broadband is being particularly grotesque, which is often.‡  But the breaking point‡‡ was a few days ago when I unplugged it to put it into my briefcase-equivalent to take back to the cottage, and a little orange light started blinking in a subdued but urgent fashion.  Now I could spend £65 or so on a new battery . . . or I could recognise the handwriting on the wall. ‡‡‡  I’m trying to remember the last time the power went out.  But the day I say ‘yes’ to the specs proffered by Raphael § . . . the power goes out. 

            Twice.  The second time the bang was louder.  The lights came on again a few minutes later, and the laptop is still functioning. §§  Not so, however, the router, which was fried to a cinder.  Fortunately—which is where we came in—I got my blog post up earlier than usual last night. . . . 

* * *

 I was moaning to Oisin about SHADOWS which, as I keep saying, would be going very well if it was due in August§§§.  For the end of January, not so much.  I have a great idea! said Oisin.  You can cut it in half (January is halfway, right?) and end it on a cliffhanger!# 

* * *

 Second check:  I was a few minutes late## to bell practise and as I scuttled down the road to the tower I wondered why I wasn’t hearing anyone ringing up.###  I panted up the ladder and discovered Penelope lounging on a bench in a ringing chamber magnificently devoid of bell ropes.  We have not worked on our telekinetic skills to the extent perhaps we should have, and our ability to ring bells without ropes is poor.  There were murmurs and thumps from upstairs.  Vicky came down a few minutes later to say grimly that Felix had been supposed to put the ropes back on on Wednesday~ but had . . . clearly failed to do so.  Roger, Niall and Leo were up in the belfry being manly, and we were more than happy to let them get on with it.~~    Rehanging ropes is always a ratbag:  having crippled yourselves and got covered with cobwebs, the ropes are never the right length.  The two was so short we had to climb on each other’s shoulders to reach it, and the four is now long enough for Rapunzel’s prince to climb up it.~~~  However, the ropes did get hung in time for us to ring a little.  There was a certain quality of whoa, what is this thing%, since our bells have been out of action for one reason or another the last three weeks and at least for the hoi polloi (ahem) one loses one’s edge rather quickly.%%  And after Christmas our bells will be taken away for months.  Whimper.

            Uh-oh.  It’s raining again. . . . 

* * *

 * No, I still got to bed at dawn, which is easier again since the clocks went back.  Personally I’d rather have the afternoon hurtle in daylight, but cranky letters to the Time Authority^ have no more influence than cranky letters to the Story Council. 

^ And so, okay, you might decide that they’ve just come down officially on the mucking-us-about-twice-a-year side+ but I’m sure there’s a unilaterality to the weeping and gnashing of teeth over the Time Authority’s inexplicable refusal to give us a few more hours in the day. 

+ And what does any bureaucracy live for but to muck us about? 

** FRELL. FRELL FRELL FRELL.  

*** More frelling. 

† flashlight 

†† And my printer went mad.  CHUNTER CHUNTER CHUNTER WHACK WHACK WHACK CLICK.  Repeat.  Repeat again.  Repeat several more times, till unplugged. 

††† It was nearly that loud. 

‡ ‘Most of the time’ is probably more accurate. 

‡‡ Speaking of breaking points, and the fact that a car must start:  Diane in MN suggested I ask-a-mechanic on www.cartalk.com about Wolfgang’s ominous erratic fault.  Has anyone out there ever done this?  They want you to pay for the privilege, which is reasonable if they’ve got real mechanics on call, but they want your credit card #—not PayPal—and I’ve never heard of Just Answer, and yes, I am extremely twitchy about brandishing my credit card on the internet. 

‡‡‡ ‘Buy a new computer, stupid.’ 

§ Hard drive bigger than god, crumbs-and-tea proof^ keyboard, sufficient muscle to recharge the iPad and an electromagnetic clamp for hanging grimly on to wonky broadband signal.  

^ The drip-prone filling of Green & Black’s mint is not mentioned.  I should ask. 

§§ Note to self:  buy new surge protectors. 

§§§ to wit^, a year from when I started it. 

^ There’s a joke here . . . but I’m too tired. 

# No jury would convict me.  

## Hellhounds and I were very comfortable on the sofa.             

### At least they had finally got the alarm in the bank on the corner turned off.  It has been going all day.  It was going last night when hellhounds and I finally got back to the cottage, and at rmmph o’clock in the morning, in the dark, with no one around but you and the floodwater sluicing down the road the moooop moooop moooop noise sounds like an announcement of the end of the world.  And fortunately it’s cool enough to have the windows closed on that side of the house, and my bedroom is on the other side anyway.  But by the time hellhounds and I hurtled past the bank, the corner and the alarm in daylight it had outstayed its welcome.  

~ Apparently there had been one more day after the one more day after the one more day before the forces of imposed order finally declared the job done. 

~~ This is an occasion where being larger and stronger is a boon, but since I’m taller than either Niall or Roger . . . I will plead ME.^ 

^ It does have its uses.  You’d just far rather find your excuses somewhere else. 

~~~ There would be a problem when he got to the arrow-slit window however. 

% Clearly not the Staypuft Marshmallow Man. 

%%  Grandsire?  Why don’t you just call him Granddad or Gramps like a normal person?

Fate, sometimes, having got you round the ankle, enjoys shaking you up and down like a yoyo for a while.  I had been supposed to go to a concert with Fiona last night, in reward for our labours, and then at more or less the last minute I found myself in one of the typical communication crosswirings of the long married, which is that Peter arranged to play bridge last night as well, which would leave no one at (either) home to keep an eye on and, critically, feed hellhounds.  Dog lady not available on no notice*, it’s never a good idea to play too fast and loose with hellhound eating schedules anyway and I’m still metaphorically leaping at small noises about Darkness.  So I had to stay home.  Sigh.**  Then I thought, okay, maybe I’ll go bell-ringing at Forza, that’s only about two hours away rather than four, and hellhounds are used to supper after bell practise.

            Then I remembered that I had just enough petrol left to get me to a petrol station to tank up.   Which was not going to happen at 7 pm.***  So I really was staying home. 

            Okay, I had photos for the blog, so that meant a short(er) post.  I could spend a little longer on SHADOWS and still get to bed early.†  Whereupon I became hideously embroiled in an argy-bargy with thrice-damned and quadrupally-frelling  WordPress, that rat’s-ass of a programme, which didn’t want to let me use Blogmom’s photo-post template, which she created for me so I didn’t have to get into argy-bargies with WordPress about PHOTOS.

            I did not get to bed early.††

            Today hellhounds and I drove out to Warm Upford to our old petrol station and mechanic, and when Blaze came out to pump diesel I asked him about Wolfgang’s Erratic Fault, which is that he occasionally . . . doesn’t start.  This is not allowed.  And I can’t even think about buying a new, or even a new-er, car right now††† so some detente must be reached.  Erratic Faults are, of course, the quadrupally-frelling ratbags of all technology, and Wolfgang’s symptoms are not helpful:  I have to have recently turned him off—just time enough, for example, to park, bring out the latest specially-ordered gigantic bags of dog kibble from the pet shop, sling them in the boot, and try, and fail, to drive away—so it’s not about being cold;  and his butt has to be lower than his front end—so parked on a slope, but uphill.  Blaze looked puzzled.  And then he spoke the phrase:  you’ll have to wait till the symptoms get worse, so we can try to reproduce them here. . . . ‡

            Peter’s daughter is staying at the mews for a couple of nights, so I hit the piano early, while she’s still at work.  It’s taking me longer to sing myself ‘in’ and produce anything even remotely resembling a singing timbre—and simply to fill in the time, because exercises, without Nadia there to say ‘do a little bit of this, now do a little bit of that’, get boring and frustrating pretty soon because I don’t know how to make them better, I’ve gone back to some old songs and am fascinated to discover that I’m singing them differently.  I’m going to hope this is progress.  I may test this theory by taking them to Nadia next week.  But the point today was to get me cranked up into singing mode, so I could go to Muddlehampton practise tonight.

            I didn’t go (again).  I’m hoarse.  What the bleeding frangledab is going on?  At this rate I’m going to die of old age before my throat recovers from its megrims.  It wasn’t even a serious head/upper respiratory cold.  But it won’t frelling go away. 

            Meanwhile . . . this afternoon’s handbells got cancelled yesterday.   Colin is on holiday, and Gemma pulled out at the last minute,‡‡ which only left Niall and me.  But that wasn’t quite utterly tragic because Niall had invited me to ring at his house on Tuesday with a bob major band.  So I was going to have a second shot at learning to ring touches of bob major.‡‡‡  I was pretty excited.

            Niall rang me back this evening to say that next Tuesday’s conductor has decided he wants to ring a full peal of minor with Niall and Caitlin.  Which means I’ve just been de-invited.   

            Whimper.

            I think I’ll go doodle something. 

* * *

* The woman has a life.  Who does she think she is?

** Fiona says it was a lovely concert.  Sigh.      

*** I don’t know what it is about the English and their petrol stations.   They close at 5, 5:30 pm, like dentists or accountants.  And even dentists usually have the occasional late evening.  It used to fascinate me, twenty years ago^, that even in London you couldn’t find a chemist or ironmonger’s^^ open in the evening—there’d be an emergency chemist, probably on the opposite side of London, if your doctor wanted to prescribe something to get you through the night, but in terms of walking down your local high street?  Forget it. 

            By the time we stopped going regularly to London this had begun to change.  Not in quaint old-fashioned village Hampshire however.

^ I have now lived in England for twenty years.  The anniversary went past without my even noticing, a few days before Halloween—I’ve even forgotten what day it was, although I could look it up.+ 

+ Well, sort of I could look it up.  It would involve looking in boxes of old paper files.  

^^ drugstore.  Hardware store.  

† HAHAHAHAHAHA.  Why do I ever think these outrageous things? 

†† And even after I went to bed, I had to play through several soothing levels of Rosecliff, which is one of these hidden objects games http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/5217/escape-rosecliff-island/index.html  and doesn’t require as much swearing as Montezuma.^ 

^ Yes, I’ve completed it.  Yes, I’m playing it again.  Your point would be?  

††† And have I mentioned that my workhorse laptop is dying and I am going to have to buy a new one?  It would be nice if this would have some positive impact on my connectivity problems, but I’m sure that’s much too easy. 

‡  Hellhounds and I did have a very pleasant hurtle at this point.  Due to various exigencies we haven’t been on a proper country hurtle in over a week, and since our favourite field near New Arcadia has had its footpath fenced off from the rest of the space, hellhounds haven’t had a sensible off-lead careen in that long.  Today they promptly took off . . .  straight over the horizon.  GAAAAAAH.  Usually they do laps, roughly speaking around me, which is a little easier to oversee.  They were persuaded, with some difficulty, to recall to mind that they’re supposed to wait at all hedgerows and gates—the idea being that I go through first and make sure we aren’t about to hurtle straight into the local hunt pretending to follow a drag trail, or Lady Featheringstonehaugh out walking her twenty-three long-haired Chihuahuas.  Hellhounds were off-lead for about twenty minutes (till we came to a road), and I was exhausted. 

‡‡ Sigh.  I am not feeling sanguine about Gemma’s future as a handbell ringer.  You have to be kind of a geek, and I think she may be too normal and well-adjusted.  She has sensible priorities, you know?  This doesn’t work if you want to learn to ring, especially handbells. 

‡‡‡ And the Mean Man is not a part of Niall’s peripatetic Tuesday evening group, so he would not be there.