While others were posting their 22 achievements for 2022 and their 23 goals for 2023 on Facebook, I had got as far as putting the washing machine on. As bloggers wrote about their Word of the Year I was contemplating making chicken stock, checking the washing machine filter and finishing my Christmas cards.
On the writing and blogging front in the early 2020’s I have not had a novel on virtual tour, excitedly revealed my new cover or started a new novel.
If I am going to choose a word of the year perhaps it could be TIDY. Tidying is an unavoidable activity closely linked to cleaning; both are tasks that take us away from more creative pursuits. Whether you are tidying up after Christmas visitors or faced with dusting when you take your cards and decorations down, most of us start the year with tidying of some sort. We might even enjoy the virtuous feeling of getting the year off to a good start and after vacuuming turn to our computer to tidy up our internet banking or our digital lives.
Perhaps one of my aims for 2023, apart from starting a novel, could be to learn Latin. I love the brevity of Latin; Word of the Year replaces four words with two, Verbum Anni. It would take us half the time to write and read blogs if we all wrote them in Latin.
Do you have a word of the year or some worthy aims? Will you trek to Everest Base Camp or tidy your sock drawer?
Nothing much happens on Tuesdays, except perhaps a special date. Today is 22-2-22, but if I don’t hurry up and post this it will be Wednesday, except in the Americas where it will still be Tuesday, but written 2-22-22.
The previous few days were more eventful as we had three storms in a row. Since the Met Office started naming storms we seem to have them more often, the aim being to make us take them seriously. On Thursday we were still thinking ‘not a nuther storm coming, up to E already, Eunice…’
But soon we were receiving RED warnings! Yes, just when you thought it was safe to go out again after Covid / chemotherapy / knee operation / kidnap by aliens – delete as appropriate, we were being instructed to stay home again.
‘Yellow, amber and even the most severe red warnings are in place for vast swathes of the United Kingdom – from Inverness to the Isle of Wight – for Friday.’
Our local council announced that almost everything would be closed on Friday. Team H deferred their long weekend visit, just like lockdown again, then cancelled as we heard that Eunice was to be followed by Storm Franklin and perhaps Gladys…
Friday dawned fair…
Friends and families warned each other ( well me ) not to go out to see the sea. I thought I would pop out to the recycling bin, but the front door nearly blew off. The front and side of our house takes the brunt of the prevailing south westerly and a record wind speed of 122 miles per hour was recorded on the Isle of Wight, as the wind wended its way to our house.
Unless you live in solitary splendour in the countryside you are probably very close or joined to your neighbours. It was our neighbour who alerted us to tiles fallen off our roof, just missing their car. Only two tiles lost and one loose, but up high…
A good while ago it was the neighbours the other side who had major building work done to their house with the scaffolding in our driveway. The builders inadvertently broke one of our tiles, but how lucky was that because they fixed it and had four tiles left over and left them with us. Even luckier, considering I always forget where I put everything, I remembered where the spare tiles were hidden in the potting shed.
My son planned to fix the roof before Eunice took unfair advantage of the weak spot. I didn’t think anyone should be doing anything with ladders. My daughter-in-law was dispatched to Wickes to buy a hook attachment for the ladder and some spongy glue stuff. I didn’t think anyone should be going out.
Luckily we have the ‘right sort of roof’ for the proposed action and with careful checking of wind speeds, yet another thing you can do on the internet and the use of two ladders, the roof was repaired later in the day. We did not have to join the queues of home owners waiting for builders and roofers.
We had of course got off lightly. People had four hundred year old oak trees falling on their house and homes were flooded. Sadly the red warnings were justified as several people were killed by toppling trees.
When you get back into town and nothing is quite how you remembered…
A jolly day out……meeting friends……for coffee…Think the weather’s brightening up?Shopping centre’s changed since I was last here.Wonder what the new book shop is like.…or the new department store?Very nice, but I haven’t seen any human beings yet…
I had a hospital appointment the day after our delayed Christmas, for planning, which sounds more like a council department, but is to measure up for radiotherapy. Handy hint – always re-read your hospital letter the night before. I was supposed to do a lateral flow test. I had never done one as I have had regular PCR tests at oncology outpatients during chemotherapy. Luckily Team AK had half a dozen boxes someone had given them as the tests were hard to acquire over the Christmas season; the whole country had been told to do them frequently before visiting. Luckily Team H were still with us, with school and work they do them all the time. Fortunately I wasn’t on my own as chemotherapy has left me with peeling finger nails and peripheral neuropathy, making undoing or peeling open anything difficult. I read the instruction booklet carefully, set the kitchen timer and announced I must not look at the test result for thirty minutes. ‘No, twenty minutes’ said someone. ‘You have to check for the pink line after five minutes’ said another.
‘What pink line?’
There was no pink line, the test was null and void. It was suggested there was not enough magic fluid in the squeezy phial. Two more test kits were opened so we could use two phials. The pink line appeared and in half an hour I had a result. My son-in-law said I had better photograph the result in case I needed proof. It had taken a team of five, three tests and two self assaults on my throat and nose to get a negative result. Thank goodness I had not left the procedure till the morning.
Not all tests are exactly the same I gather and they probably have different names according to where you live. I wonder how anyone living alone with bad eyesight or hands that don’t work one hundred per cent manages to do these tests, let alone busy parents who are expected to test their children every time symptoms or contacts occur. I have also concluded from my limited circle of family and friends that we are divided over testing, the same as we are divided over mask wearing. Some families test continually and demand the same of visitors while others have never taken a test.
Parents with school children are testing frequently. Fortunately a positive result in children usually means mild symptoms and time off school, yet again… A recent survey reveals that since the school term started three out of four grandchildren now have Covid…
I can’t abide reviews of the year, any year and especially not the Terrible Twenties! Sport, politics, war, disaster or disease, I don’t want to see or hear reviews; it started days before the chimes and fireworks …
Revitalizing, reviving and rambling is what we need. You can ramble around having exercise or you can ramble on when you are blogging…
A BOXING DAY RAMBLE – FOR ONE DAY THE WEATHER WAS PERFECT and I was going to write a blog about it... but
I haven’t completely left 2021 behind; Christmas was delayed for three days Chez Tidalscribe, so I am a bit late arriving in 2022 and I have only just started reading the book for tomorrow’s Zoom book club.
Two days later… well it turned out only one person in the group had read the book and the lady who runs the group had not even opened it. Everyone cited Christmas as the reason.
Four more Christmas cards just arrived, one of which I will definitely have to answer with a review resume an update on 2021. Just when you think the Christmas card nightmare is over… remember those days in the December twenties when you realise you have not sent out cards early to tell old friends and relatives you have moved, got cancer, been widowed, made redundant… or you realise you did not reply to those old friends and relatives who wrote last January to apologise for not sending a Christmas card because they had been widowed, busy moving house, got a cancer diagnosis, lost their dog …
Covid has given us a whole new string of excuses for not sending cards, or more importantly getting out of actually seeing anybody next year…
We must get together when things settle down.
Would love to take you up on your invitation to come up and stay, but I’m working 24/7 at the hospital.
Just tested positive so New Year’s party is cancelled.
I’ll send you the link for the Zoom funeral, such a shame you can’t come, Dad would have loved a good turn out…
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 