I think the last time I posted anything to this blog thingy must have been at least 3 years ago. I just stopped, suddenly! Major changes, I suppose – not all of them adverse – intervened rudely into my life, as they tend to do to everyone never expecting them to ever impinge upon themselves.
I suppose I was suffering from depression, despair, or, as I like to think of it, a bout of Black Soul. A bit akin to the hardened drinker’s type of hangover where there is no headache or upset stomach, everything is functioning on automatic but in black and shades of grey. Not only is colour is lacking so is a joie de vivre or any innate interest in anything whatsoever, a state I call Boozer’s Gloom. In my case, the former was in the ascendancy (thank God, says my liver).
What this all means is that I have not written anything for ages and seem to have lost all desire to do so. Another, stupid, factor was that I messed up the menu system on celticcurve.com and as a result subconsciously refused to write for any of my sub categories until the menu system was fixed. Given that any effort I made to repair my menu system only seemed to make matters worse, I refrained from doing anything.
Now, my menus are back to normal – almost – and I have one less excuse not to bestir myself and write something. Thank you so much for the help I received for my menu resolution and the impetus to write something again to stuff in the hole in the oak tree in the woods.
But now the age old problem – after so long – what to write about?
I should write about something for one of my Categories – Celtic Trivia, Peregrinations, Tastes or something I know or have experiences of, imagined, dreamed, invented, exaggerated, participated in, objected to, admired, angered, but …?
I feel have been on a bit of a nosedive in many ways over the last few years – a feeling almost of free fall. Soporific as it can be, time to pull up and look around.
Never mind all that nonsense, let me go off on a tangent here and let’s see if this works out.
I mentioned above some of the changes over the last two or three years have been, I think beneficial – to whom remains of course to be seen! I remember, years ago – back in the 1950’s? – when my sister, a few years older than me, was apparently bitten by a dog, my parents’ decided to get a puppy, that being the best cure for being dog shy. Maybe something cuddly, a lap type of dog might have been better but they got my sister a Jack Russell pup – a lively, extrovert bundle of energy that, by default, became mine.
Looking back now, I imagine I was 6 or 7 years old at the time but I don’t ever remember Scamp being taken for a walk. I suppose he had the run of the front and back gardens instead. I don’t even remember if he had a lead or a leash, whatever you call it. No idea now of course how long we had Scamp but I do remember him having to wear a old-fashioned Nun’s wimple or collar around his neck to stop him scratching – could it have been something like distemper?
Anyway, one school lunchtime at home, I was in a hurry to run an errand up to the local shop, and I didn’t close the gate properly. Scamp followed me and ran across the main Monkstown road to the opposite side where I was. Unthinking, I called him back to me and he ran diagonally across the road towards me and was hit immediately by one car which tossed him to the other side where he was thrown aside by a second car. He was still alive – barely – when I scooped him up – and, tears streaming down my face, I carried him home. My mother gently took him from me and then scolded me for the blood stains on my school uniform. A change of clothes and a letter explaining my late attendance at school. When I came home that afternoon, there was no sign of Scamp and my mother said it was for the best.
That was the last time I had a dog. I have had other pets of course – all of whom seem to have sustained sudden and fatal impacts in some way or other. There were the innumerable goldfish in a plastic bag of water, won at some school bazaar; the white rabbit – Flip – I got one Easter only for it to disappear mysteriously one day while I was at school again! Then there was the Guinea Pig, Ginny, who also managed to vanish one day. I used to like her squeaks of greeting when I came home from school and fed her a carrot.
I remember my father agreed to look after a pet for one of his colleagues for an indefinite period. The pet in question was a large, possibly elderly, Mynah Bird with a rather colourful vocabulary so much so that my father was obliged to cover the bird’s cage with a blanket while he led the family in the bended knees ritual of the rosary. I remember my mother was mortified when she went to answer the front door one afternoon to be confronted by a trio of earnest young women who wished to talk to her about salvation and the Kingdom Hall until they were regaled with a slew of obscene demands and suggestions roared out in a salty tone from the kitchen. Startled, the would be missionaries withdrew and my mother came back into the kitchen and said ‘Good Jacko” for the first time I ever heard her address the bird.
Much later in my adult life and travels I had a Mynah bird, jet black except for its vivid yellow and white flashings, he was also a perfect mimic – or so I had been told. I’d greet him every afternoon on my return from work and chat to him while I was having a coffee in the morning, fully expectant that my cheery words were steadily being absorbed through Haji Jack’s beady eyes and that he was on the verge of asking me for a hug and a kiss when I had to go away for a few days and a friend offered to look after him for me.
“I opened the cage and he just flew away’ explained my friend when he presented me with the empty cage on my return. That was the end of my aviary options.
None of that really matters now, the point is sometime in October 2023 Fido, a 12 week old mix of Toy Poodle and Maltese – something appalling like a Moodle – moved in and took charge.
Perhaps my original idea before the rather sudden impulse buy was that a puppy might kindle maternal feelings but that didn’t really work out too well so once again, by default, Fido becomes mine.
He makes me laugh every day – better than reading a Bertie Wooster escapade and guffawing in public – and seems to have an amazing affinity with my toes and socks. He knows his name, Sit, Stay (for about 5 steps away), Come (when waggling treat in his direction) and ehmm …. Well actually, that’s probably it – I am not in the business of training puppies to ponce around on their hind legs to offer their paw in a meaningless gesture, No, let the beast run free as long as he remembers the hand that feeds. Mind you, Fido seems particularly difficult in that respect. I remember asking the girl from whom I got Fido what he likes to eat. (This is at 12 weeks remember) ‘Oh He likes lean mince beef’. Oh, does he? thinks I, buying bulky kilo bags of Optimus dry dog food, large tins of Cham turkey and roo mince and god know what else, not to mention the treats – air-dried liver strips, roo jerky and so all of which he turns his nose up at.
You’d think that would be enough for any dog, especially one pampered with Milky Chicken sticks, but oh no! All Fido wants is what I have on my plate – fair enough to him, I suppose, I want what is on my plate too and I think I have preference but I have to admires both his persistence and taste.
OK, end of the tangent here.
Red Branch Chronicles 