Trillian Is No Angel

Somewhat belatedly I noticed Heather's comment on my answer to the rites of passage list. Specifically she was amazed that I hadn't been able to check off the making a snow angel. The UK is a deprived bit of civilisation. Snow is an infequent annoyance for Brits, rather than an occasion for fun.

Most often when snow drifts out of the sky it fails to to settle but when it does it brings chaos and frustration rather than any great degree of opportunity for recreation. Mostly this because a fall of British snow is rarely more than an inch. Greater amounts are mostly a once a year event and accumulations greater than a foot are memorable. Needless to say, half an inch is sufficient to completely disable the nation's transport infrastructure. Two great leviathans of inertia are the principle cause of this shameful fact. The first is the built-in corporate incompetence of the public authorities that, in theory, should be able to predict the weather and to coordinate a response it. In practice what happens is the workers who are needed to grit and plough the roads are unable to leave home because they are snowed in. The second reason is British phlegm which is only properly propitiated if the maximum credible chaos is encouraged, by masterful inaction, to develop.

The last truly spectacular snow I remember affecting a great swathe of the country was over a quarter of century ago. I was part of a foursome who had decided on a novel way of bridging the gap between Christmas and New Year by taking a short break in Cornwall, where the weather is always nice and the beaches are spectacular. Money was tight — when is it any other way, I wonder? — so we had to be careful in selecting our accomodations. In the end we found a hotel in King Arthur country where we were promised comfort and a welcome even though it was closed season. The proprietor had newly bought the business and, he told us, was keen to show us some old-fashioned Cornish hospitality. It was old-fashioned alright!

The hotel was ancient and very run down but it was cheap. We were only offered bed and breakfast but that was OK because there were plenty of restaurants nearby. Our first day was fabulous. The weather was mild and we had a fabulous time picking our way from one craggy promontory to the next via short, steep, shingly beaches. On the second day we drove a little way inland looking for a different venue for our evening meal. It did not take us long. We spent the rest of the day touring the area's principle tourist traps and enjoying the bright sunshine and the extra ten minutes of daylight afforded by the latitude ... we did not register that the temperature was plummeting. We returned to the hotel at dusk to play a game of hearts; loser to be the nominated — alcohol free — driver for the night. It was 30th December and the next day we were planning to hit the nearby town and stock up on party food and drinks and have our own private new year's party in our rooms.

I lost the card game. Mostly because I am the eternal optimistic pessimist and so, when playing hearts, I always aim to clear my tab by consistently and far too predictably aiming to collect all the penalties. By the time we set out for our meal at seven it had started to snow. The snow was outrageous. The flakes were the size of postage stamps and they were sticking. Before long we had left the little coastal village and turned onto the narrow lane that winds its way inland between the high banks that are so characteristic of the area. I very quickly found that I couldn't actually see where I was going. Soon, there was a thick accumulation of snow on the windscreen that the wipers were struggling with and visibly losing ground. In a hastily convened counsel of war we took no time at all to agree that further progress might amount to suicide. More by luck than judgement I turned us around and we regained the hotel before the snow was more than four or five inches deep. We abandonned the car in the hotel car park and staggered through the blizzard toward the multi-colored Christmas tree lights that beckoned us from the window of the bistro where had dined the previous evening.

Unsurprisingly the restaurant was able to fit us in and we ate and drank and were generally merry. Getting back to the hotel was problematic. High heeled sandals are entirely the wrong footwear for blizzard conditions. The wind had risen and the snow was drifting. Where it was thinned the snow was only inches deep but in the lees it was as deep as the wall it hid behind. We all passed an uncomfortable night.

The heater in our room was woefully inadequate. This became a less apt description around 3am when my companion woke to the discovery that the feeble emissions from the heater had succeeding in melting the snow that had blown under the roof tiles and which was now dripping through the ceiling's plaster onto our bed. We dragged the bed further from the outer wall and placed the room's metal waste bin under the drip. (I employed a trick, learned as a student in slummy accomodations: that of placing a towel over the bucket to deaden the sound of the drips.

The following morning dawned bright and clear. But it was soon apparent that our village was as good as on the moon. England's entire south-western peninsular was snowed in. We got most of this news from the village postman who — as cut off as we were — had nothing to deliver and was making use of his time to check on the welfare of the elderly and housebound. Oh well. It was New Years Eve, so we hiked about in the snow. I don't know if we were aware of the hallowed art of snow angel making but it wouldn't have been easy if we had. The storm that had lashed across the land had scoured the snow from any open space and just dumped it behind walls, against buldings and into the narrow lanes where it lay up to ten feet deep. It would be days before every road was re-opened. We did discover snow diving.

For people raised in a land where extremes of weather are unusual we had a heavenly time exploring the drastically altered lanscape that we had so scantly gotten to know the preceeding day. I was the first idiot to conceive of the notion of throwing myself into a deep drift. I disappeared utterly and lost contact with the world and with gravity. I instantly discovered how disorienting getting buried in an avalanche might be. Shrieking with laughter I squealed and screamed with histrionic panic to be rescued. After a few minutes I was pulled clear and accepted the sober rebukes of my friends who'd had time to compile a whole catalogue of what ifs that began with a milestone and ended with an schadenfreuden-ly misplaced hay-tedder. It wasn't long before we were all doubled up with the intoxification of uninhibited laughter. Inevitably someone else felt the same compulsion and the rest of us rolled our eyes and shouted derisively into the snow that we would come looking for her after the thaw ....

I won't drag on. The rest of the tale isn't so pretty. Our New Years celebration was grim because we were unable to lay in the needed supplies and our Cornish hosts did not see fit to extend their Cornish hospitality to their guests when it was obvious we had nowhere else to go. We ended up crashing their private New Years party and bogarted as much booze as we could.

New Years day had recently become a public holiday for England and Wales but we all had jobs to be back for on January 2nd so we had to leave, as planned, the following morning ... whether we wanted to or not. It wasn't easy. The only road out of the village that was open was headed the wrong way. Still a way out is a way out. I also remembered a summer holiday in the same general area when I was a child and flash floods had caused my father to take a similalry circuitious route of escape from a county that is surround on 3 sides by water. It took us 12 hours to get back home; the trip down had taken 4.

It was a good experience. Thanks again to Heather for her comment that reminded me of it!

Boxing Day Make It Easy

Although the official language of this country is English, the bit of England that I have made my home has one of the most impenetrable accents combined with a medieval dialect which betrays the heritage of language's Angle, Saxon and Jute principal verb: to be. I am, for example might be rendered: I bist, but in the next townlet a few miles down the road it might be I bay. Just add to confusion I am not would be rendered I bay and I bain't respectively. Confused? You aren't alone. By such means we grow to understand that a degree of lateral thinking is needed when a dialogue begins ... even between natives of the same town!

A few years ago I was helping out at a community centre when the following farcical conversation occurred. At the time the EU had decided to demolish its surplus butter and beef mountains by distributions to pensioners and people on welfare benefits. Butter was given out one week and the cans of beef were to be distributed later. So there we were standing at a table loaded with cases of butter — just inside the centre's front door — and an elderly afro-caribbean gent comes in and, spotting us at the table, he approaches.

"I've, um," he said. "Come for me mate."

"It's the butter this week, chick," said the lady in charge.

"Erm," said the old black guy, a look of puzzled confusion on his face. "I just wan'edder pick up me mate though."

"We only 'ave the butter today, though. We won't be doin' the mate till nex' week." By now I had twigged what was going on ....

I stood by and watched in mazement as the verbal rally continued confusedly thru a further couple of rounds of volley and backhand slice return before it dawned upon my companion that they were at cross purposes. The man had obviously arrived to collect a friend. My companion had assumed that mate was meat, which — of course — it is, except when it means mate as in pal, chum, companion.

To make matters more confusing not all speakers use all of the modified vowels and verb. So hills, that are mostly referred to as banks — often but not exclusively pronounced bonk &mdash might have a financial institution at the top: a bank, which is always pronounced bank.

I think my favorite Black Country dialect joke is the Enoch and Eli story ....

Enoch and Eli (pronounced Ay-nock and Ay-Lie) take a holiday by the sea where they see a surfing dude carry his board down the beach.

"'Ere, Aynock," says Eli. "What's that 'e's carrying?"

"That's one of them surfboards, Ayli."

For the next few minutes they watch as the surfer works his way out to where the waves are building. They stare intently as he paddles like crazy to get under way with a big wave. They goggle with amazement as the daring young man struggles to get to his feet while the wave begins to break beneath him. Their faces remain frozen in shock as the surfer loses it and tumbles off. The board flips over and smashes the young guy in the face pulping his nose causing the white surf around him to turn pink with blood. After what seems an age the young man is deposited bloodied and bruised on the beach.

"Wot did you say that thing was?" Eli said.

"A surfboard," said Enoch. "Why?"

"Well, it don't look very safe to me!" Depending on the teller's specific dialect the 'don't' might be rendered as day, doe or even bay.

I spent a long chunk of yesterday unpacking a lot of cardboard boxes. I am about halfway thru unpacking now which is, I admit, not exactly rapid progress, but I am not planning on going anywhere. This morning I suspended my planned activities to make some alterations out in the garden after Little Mad expressed some serious reservations concerning the route taken by a local tabby tom cat on his bi-weekly state tour of his domain. The ensuing cat-fight was short but savage and Tom retreated the way he had come, making a temporary redoubt in the tangle of stick-dry, leafless undergrowth that comprises the far end of my garden. I repaired the hole on the fence panel that otherwise hides the unsightly tangle from view (there are number of items of discarded garbage there, including a rusted sprung sofa). If Tom wants in via that route from now on he will have to teeter-totter on the brink of the knife thin ricketty fence with a savagely gleeful killer waiting in hiding somewhere below. Toms may be led by their glands but they're not completely insane ... beside Little Mad ain't giving out any signals!

List Ye To My Confessions

I saw this list on Sharon's blog and although I thought some of the events more than a little odd if not trite I thought it worthwhile wasting a half hour on to record my own catalogue of shame and triumph and disaster.

(X) smoked a cigarette. (Far too many but not recently thank God.)
( ) crashed a friend's car (Almost but a miss is as good as a mile, right?
(X) stolen a car (I have a criminal conviction for 'stealing' my ex's motor cycle)
(X) been in love
(X) been dumped.
(X) been fired.
( ) been in a fist fight
( ) snuck out of your parents' house
(X) had feelings for someone who didn't have them back.
(X) been arrested
( ) gone on a blind date
(X) lied to a friend
(X) skipped school
(X) seen someone die (Yes and it was a grisly and pathetically sad event because the lady was a complete stranger and I felt that someone should sit with her while she took her last mortal breaths rather than be alone on a gurney in a busy hospital. She was unconscious but she took a long time to stop living.)
(X) gone sledding
( ) been to Canada (Been to several European countries though)
( ) been to Mexico (But I did take a trip south of the equator to South Africa)
(X) been on a plane
( ) purposely set a part of yourself on fire. (I am too seriously pyrophobic ever to even consider that!)
(X ) eaten sushi.
( ) been skiing.
( ) met someone from the internet (No way José)
(X) been at a concert
(X) taken painkillers
(X) love someone or miss someone right now
(X) laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by
( ) made a snow angel
(X) had a tea party
(X) flown a kite
(X) built a sand castle
(X) gone puddle jumping.
(X) played dress up
(X) jumped into a pile of leaves
(X) cheated while playing a game (But only in fun - I wouldn't cheat for personal gain)
(X) been lonely
(X) fallen asleep at work/school
( ) used a fake ID (Been times though when I would have been tempted to use one if I'd had one handy)
(X) watched the sun set
(X) felt an earthquake (Felt it? I was almost on top of the epicentre!)
( ) slept beneath the stars. (Oh yeah like an arachnophobe would do that without being drugged!)
(X) been tickled.
(X) been robbed. (Been burgled at home, at work and my car has been stolen. City life is a bitch!)
(X) been misunderstood. (Most of the time)
( ) petted a reindeer/goat/kangaroo (I have eaten goat though. It makes a yummy curry.)
(X) won a contest. (The Junior Literary Prize at my Grammar School)
(X) run a red light/stop sign. (It's so wrong but doing it occasionally can feel so right.)
( ) been suspended from school (Can't think why though. I wasn't good unless you count being adept at avoiding notice ... and the blame.)
(X) been in a car crash
( ) had braces
(X) felt like an outcast/third person
(X) eaten a whole pint! of ice cream in one night (I checked this becasue I have gluttoned my way through numerous equivalents.)
(X) had deja vu.
( ) danced in the moonlight
( ) liked the way you looked (I never liked the way I looked. I've gotten used to myself now, but that still doesn't mean I like what I see.)
(X) witnessed a crime
( ) been obsessed with post-it notes (Hate them)
( ) gone doorbell ditching (Eh?)
( ) believe in ghosts (I waver on this one though)
(X) found a stray animal and kept it
( ) squished barefoot through the mud (Ew!)
(X) been lost (Where am I?)
(X) been on the opposite side of the country (That's not difficult in the UK)
( ) swam in the ocean (Can't swim anyway)
(X) felt like dying
(X) cried yourself to sleep
(X) played cops and robbers
( ) recently colored with crayons (Always drawing and doodling though with pencil or pen)
( ) sung karaoke (I couldn't sing in public if my life depended on it!)
( ) paid for a meal with only coins
(X) done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(X) made prank phone calls.
(X) laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
( ) caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) danced in the rain
(X) written a letter to Santa Claus.
(X) been kissed under the mistletoe.
(X) watched the sun rise with someone you care about
(X) blown bubbles
(X) made a bonfire on the beach
(X) crashed a party.
( ) gone rollerskating.
( ) had a wish come true
( ) jumped off a bridge
(X) ate dog/cat food.
( ) told a complete stranger you loved them
(X) kissed a mirror.
(X) sang in the shower.
( ) had a dream that you married someone.
(X) glued your hand to something.
( ) kissed a fish.
(X) sat on a roof top.
(X) screamed at the top of your lungs.
( ) done a one-handed cartwheel.
( ) talked on the phone for more than 5 hours.
(X) stayed up all night
(X) picked and ate an apple right off the tree.
(X) climbed a tree
( ) had a tree house
(X) scared to watch a scary movie alone.
( ) have more than 30 pairs of shoes.
(X) worn a really ugly outfit to school.
( ) pushed into a pool/hot tub with all your clothes on.
(X) gone streaking
( ) gone skinny dipping in a pool/hot tub.
( ) told you're hot by a complete stranger
(X) broken a bone.
(X) been easily amused.
( ) caught a fish then ate it.
(X) caught a butterfly.
(X) laughed so hard you cried
(X) cried so hard you laughed
( ) cheated on a test
(X) forgotten someone's name
( ) french braided someone's hair.
(X) loved someone so much you would gladly die for them.

Rule Of Law

I think there is probably too much law. Law is just a process for dispensing justice but is it really necessary to cross every i and dot every t? [Sic]

What is so surprising is not that so many people escape the attentions of the judicial process but the fact that so many people of essentially good character find themselves so deeply in the mire because the true essence of justice is merely a system and no system devised by men cannot be subverted by a wily and skillful operator. We all know that the guilty walk free whilst the hapless are damned by their own gullibility. None of this is news, of course, but it's a useful preamble to remind us that, in spite of preconceptions, British Justice is heavily hamstrung by the weight of laws and procedures designed to protect all the parties involved, from the accused via the police and law profession to the victim. Every aspect is governed by various versions of Police And Criminal Evidence Acts and the less formal "Judges Rules", which have been mostly superceded by the statutes but — I am sure — remain in force anyway.

My free legal advocate was one of those men to whom women like myself cannot but help but to like at first sight. He was older than me, but not by much, and he was dressed in a good suit that, although well cut, did not shriek any of the male power game signals that so turn me off. My initial impression, then, of a man who cares — as much about his demeanour and appearance as he does about his work and domestic life. His opening comment focussed on my most recent affectation: a "make poverty history" wristband. He drew my attention to his with the wry observation that his wife had told him he was too old for such silliness. It was an instant ice-breaker. He took charge while leaving me the impression that I was still in control as much as any paying client.

He began by summarising the situation as it had been outlined in the police charge sheet and he then asked for my side of the story. I'd had the best part of three hours solitary confinement to consider my situation. With no experience of the criminal justice system other than as a viewer and reader of television and books I had arrived in police custody in a defiant mood. My intention was simply to deny all knowledge of the bike and to hell with it. I knew I was technically innocent and my guilt had to be proven. For that to occur evidence had to be produced and my "confession" to EP in the heat of a row could never be admissible in a court. But three hours is a long time for a mouthy, opinionated cow like me. I had time to consider how much worse my punishment might be if — against all reason — evidence emerged anyway and then I was found guilty. Frankly the idea was appalling. It seemed unlikely the bike would ever be found (and without habeas rustus I would remain forever in the clear) but likely and certain are beasts of differring hue. I don't gamble, except an occasional irrational impulse to buy a lottery ticket, because I dislike odds of any kind.

I began then by asking TS (The Solicitor) how much trouble I was in. "Am I facing a jail sentence over this?" I asked. Nothing like cutting to the chase! I hate to shilly-shally in conversation.

"Good lord, no!" TS said. "This is the first time you've ever been arrested, isn't it?" I nodded. I was close to tears of self pity throughout much of the next half hour or so, but I shall not mention it again. I chewed at my lip and worked away at the cuff of light jacket I was wearing. I don't swear to it now, but I think it was then that I decided with finality that I would tell everything. Every damned sordid detail.

It did not take long, but I chronicled my life and times with ET through 3 different addresses, bank account sharing and bedroom arrangements. In a few minutes I covered 16 years of my life. When I reached the end he neatly summarised the central and most painful fact of the whole affair. "Goodness!" He said. "You've been involved with him longer in separation than you were as a couple."

I agreed that this was so. I also enlarged upon some of the more salient elements of our financial entanglements that had left me helplessly tied down to the place until EP committed himself to a final deal for transferring the whole title in the property to me. The very last conversation EP and I had had on the deal had been in February or March of 2004 when he had offered me a deal that effectively gave the house to me in return for taking responsibility for all debts outstanding. I'd then told him that I was not working and was under treatment for anxiety and depression and that I would be unable to proceed with mortgage negotiation until I was better.

Over the next seventeen months my mental state ebbed and flowed. My ability to pay the mortgage failed during last summer and arrears began to accumulate. I discovered I was unable to contact him and he — for reasons best know to himself — made no effort to contact me or his bankers. Eventually I was being served with eviction notices by the courts at the bank's behest. I sold the bike because EP still owed me money I had loaned him after we separated. It had been abandonned and untouched for almost eight years and had not been in any sort of running condition since 1993 ... at which time EP himself had estimated that £5,000 minumum was required to restore the machine to a condition suitable for "showing".

My tale concluded, TS told me that he thought the matter was almost more appropriately a civil matter rather than a criminal one. However there was a criminal charge extant and my best approach would be to admit the charge on the same basis as I had just explained it to him.

So we called in the officer and we went through the whole process again, this time on record for the tapes. Little of the procedure is like that seen on TV. Even the standard caution takes on new meaning when I was challenged to explain what I understood it to mean. For the benefit of the tape record I was coaxed into repeating the sentiment of the caution so there could never be any doubt that I knew exactly what it meant.

At last we were drawing to the grisly conclusion. A crime had been reported and an allegation made concerning me. In consequence I had been arrested and charged with the offence and now I was making a verbal statement, cooperatively in a police interview. The important fact, for the cops, was my admission of guilt in respect of the offence on the chargesheet. Such a confession leaves little room for manoeuvre by any of the parties involved ... I kind of knew that much both on the instinctual level as well as on the higher moral ground of that imposter known as natural justice. I did not hear that term employed but it seemed to be singing sweetly out of every pore in the sound-deadening tiles of the interview room (tiles, without which, tape-recording would have been a far greater technological challenge in a 1950's police station at a busy city intersection.)

The officer told me that he was satisifed to terminate the interview and I could be released. He also told me that he would consult with his inspector concerning the next action, which I understood to be the preparation of a report for the Crown Prosecution Service who would decide if I would face trial.

After a short phone call the officer hung up and offered me a caution. TS took me aside to whisper his advice that it was the best deal I was going to get if I wanted a quiet life (That is to say: to go home and put it all behind behind me.) A police caution is a case-clearing shortcut for all parties ... except the victim. I signed a confession and the police got a crime cleared up (good for station morale and statistics). I also got to walk home with no further criminal charges to face regarding the same matter. Only a fool would risk a trial after making a taped confession, so I accepted the caution with immense relief.

The downside of a police caution is the acquisition of a criminal record. I was fingerprinted, photographed and sampled for DNA so my life of crime is over before it ever really got off the ground. Which is one failure I shall not be unhappy to have on my life's record.

It wasn't the best day of my life ... but, hell! I've had worse. And I did get to witness EP's reaction and that almost pays all. I'll settle for almost. For once nearly is good enough!

Mirelly

mirelly
Originally uploaded by wfatc_Trillian.

Captured by the crappy camera built into my mobile, Mirelly stares into the distance contemplating either her 96 hour odyssey or a nap or dinner ... it isn't an easy life being a cat.

No Never! No More!

Ah songs lyrics! And even worse my Folk Club days are showing. But even though it is just past 4 am life has taken an optimistic turn with the return of the "Wild Rover". I woke at 4 convinced (again) that I had heard her distinctive cry. I had retired early and wasn't especially surprised. I dismissed the idea that Little Mad was outside the bedroom the window because it seemed ludicrous think that she would be able to recognise the house out of many similar ones and considering that she had made good her escape via the rear. Besides my dreams have always had a strong aural element....

When I heard the cry again I was galvanised. Could it really be her? I had come close to giving up yesterday. My seventy two hour deadline had been and gone and my dear former neighbour, D has no news either other than to report with sour amusement some of the fanciful gossip that has bloomed in the wake of my departure. We laughed over a coffee at the follies of human frailties as W's dinner cremated itself — forgotten — in the kitchen. Oops....

On my way back home I loitered outside two different pet stores. A little one in The Land Time Forgot and a mall based giant; just looking, is all. Should have stocked up on cat food though but my superstitious roots suspect that would have soured the fermenting good fortune.

I dressed hastily in a pair of jeans and a sloppy sweatshirt and headed for the front door. As it opened I caught sight of four white socks scuttling down the flight of steps that lead down to the road between the roses and I heard a familiar wheezy croak of feline surprise. I mde my trademark sqeak and waited. There came and answering meep and I squeaked again and Little Mad appeared out of the pre-dawn gloom, ignored me entirely and rushed past into the living room presumably to double check that she had the right premises.

After rubbing her cheeks against a few familiar corners she seemed content and, turning her attentions to me, she accepted some happy scoldings and ear-scratchings and agreed that she was, indeed, a jolly clever cat to have found her way home. (Although a part of me wants to think she had passed the preceeding nights mewling outside the bedroom windows of every house in the 'hood until she found the right one. That scenario would be more in keeping with her, undeserved, reputation for crackpot behaviour, but I don't suppose she'll be apt to tell me and I doubt I'm likley to get evidence from any other sources.)

One thing I am certain of is that she doesn't appear to care a fig either for my own concerns nor for the wider concerns of the blogoshpere. The tidings that her welfare had become a matter of concern in several different time zones had no discernible effect as she calmly despatched a bowlful of food. Enough for now, she has decided my lap looks like a comfy place and this lap ain't big enough for Mirelly Lyra and a laptop computer.

Perhaps later I shall be able to concentrate on finishing the tale of the interview in the police station.

Dirty Habits

It was my intention to title this piece "I Don't Do Habits" but it occurred to me that I have far too many habits. Postponing jobs being one, eating when not hungry is another. My latest habit is not smoking. The recent stresses I have endured have caused my old addiction to waken from its uneasy slumber and it rages and craves at inopportune moments. I then go off down a reflective dead end daydreaming about the idea of casually walking into a little newsagent shop and picking up a paper and then, kind of carelessly, I say: "and a pack of B&H please." I won't ... well I hope I won't, but the distraction is annoying and that's putting it mildly.

Yesterday I promised myself that I would do something useful and productive. Of all the jobs outstanding, bringing the washing machine into operation was the most pressing because the events of last week had gotten in the way of laundry which was already overdue ... because of procrastination. My new bungalow is very compact but it still boasts a separate laundry; well it's a 5 by 3 foot cupboard by the back door but I got a handyman to fit some taps, a waste pipe and power point. Well the movers put the machine in there and then I had it buried as I stood around peering at the the seemingly endless boxes of stuff being brought in and directing where it should go. Too much was unidentifiable and was sent to the laundry cubby ....

By mid afternoon I had cleared the space and sorted out the machine. I also added a couple of extra shelves which are not exactly level but only I will be looking at so who cares ... I can't help it if the drill always seemed to skate off a little before it bit into the brick. Besides half the men I know are as useless, if not more so, at the simple domestic construction jobs. That was one fault not possessed by EP which isn't to say much because gilding doesn't disguise the underlying shape.

It was also a hot day yesterday and by the time I was ready to start sorting out the stuff that had accumulated on the paved area outside the sun had come around and was quietly baking every square inch. So I reviewed the situation and trawled my mind's basement for reasons to procrastinate. I found what I needed. Mads dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Well although I am undoubtedly mad I neither dog nor man ... I'll settle for mad bitch. Either way I could get out of the heat. I got.

How is possible for 37 channels of TV to be so deficient of choice? One station was showing back to back episodes of Diagnosis Murder ... and I sat watching that for 20 minutes hoping to see Dick Van Dyke break into some mockney Meary Powppens or do a quick bit of tap ... he didn't. Realising that I could care a lot less concerning the identity of the murderer I went back outside where the sun had moved around behind the large tree that might be sycamore but isn't. (Identifying it is a task to do when I unpack the box of books that contains my battered flora.) Meanwhile I decided that it was just too hot for serious work. It didn't actually take long to tidy up and put the syuff away and when I had finished I spent a happy ten minutes under the shower getting the caked on brick dust and sweat washed away. Brick dust turns out to be a effective exfoliant scrub although I don't recomment it.

Now it is August the early evening shadows are longer and after a hot day, if there is anything resembling a breeze a walk is great way to cool off and wind down. I also felt that it was time to explore the south-western fringes of my hinterland. There's a large undulating park one street away to the west. The south-west bound road which borders the park has a small church, a community centre, a school and — half a mile away — there is a useful convenience store selling most of life's essentials. I found my suspicions it had been a hot day confirmed because the chiller cabinets were looking a little thin on stock at 7pm. I took this to be a good sign because the sheleves were otherwise well-stocked and I hate it when I buy a drink from a chiller only to find that it hasn't been in the chiller long enough to get properly cold. This guy probably refills the shelves when he closes up for the night.

I picked up a few cans of Guinness because there is nothing so nice as a long tall glass of the dark stout at the end of a hot day. I haven't actually got down to unpacking the long tall glasses but it tasted just as good from a shorter, fatter one.

There is still no sign of Little Mad. She has now been missing for 48 hours so if she were to turn up, either back here or at the old address then the next 24 hours is the most likely time. My old neighbours have been alerted and I shall be passing there tomorrow and I will check-up to see if there is any news.

Right. Time I emptied the washing machine and put it outside to dry ....

Busy Busy

I have spent too much time writing recently that should more productively have been spent unpacking and other tasks connected with a new home. But ah! That's me. The great procrastinator. I am not, therefore, in hibernation just otherwise engaged. I have still to tell the yarn of my police interview and the aftermath and that may have to wait for a day or two more.

In the meantime there continues to be no sign of Little Mad although her spirit hangs close to me like a cloak. I seem to sense her presence and maybe she isn't actually far away. If cats possess some sort of navigational sense that would guide her in the direction of her former home then she has a canal to cross within 50 yards. She could just be hanging out in the undergrowth a few yards from the back door and if she is I guess she'll come when she's hungry. Well, I can hope.

Last night I managed to catch most of a TV programme that featured fellow blogger Chameleon. The full story of the recording was told here. I think the lady is too modest. Her team's performance was respectable and for quite a while the contest could have gone either way and the final result seemed to me to belie the facts as I remembered them. Anyway it was good to be able to put an animated face to the words. Chameleon writes in an evocatively lyrical style that rarely fails to capture my imagination, although I have to confess that some of her pieces are long and — considering her very broad remit of subject areas — I do therefore to ignore a proportion of her posts ... if only to retain some time for me to do other things.

I am so often in awe of other bloggers. Even setting aside my pathetically poor typing skills that produce an average of 0.25 typos per word and 2.5 skipovers per paragraph, the act of composition for me is too often closer to childbirth than copulation. The coitus occurs in my mind but the parturition is an exhausting process and, worse, the unfortunate metaphor is too often made worse by the uncomfortable fact that the afterbirth is occasionally the better part. In this instance the afterbirth is the stuff starts to get tacked on around the edges of the story I am telling. Like this paragraph, only better. I really must push the Publish Post button and get out of here!

Hard Cell

"Oh my god," I thought as stepped out into the busy street with a uniformed cop taking up station at either elbow. At least they weren't actually holding on to me. I might be accused of theft but they seemed to content to accept my parole, at least as far as their personal professional responsibilities went. It has occurred to me this morning to wonder why I was arrested as opposed to being requested to go to the police station to help with equiries. I am a bit of hellcat in some respects. There are some things that just get my dander up and some other things that inexplicably do not. I suppose that it's the simple things that rile me, while the complex issues take some thinking about and there's nothing like a good think to defuse an anger-making situation. Of course stewing over a wrong is a good way to cook up a nice pot of cold revenge, but — although I have used the word before — selling that benighted bike wasn't an act of revenge. I was pleased there was a vengeful element in the outcome, but the whole business was matter of worry and wrongness to me. Not serious enough to have stopped me, and I would still do it again ... and hang around to face the consequences. All the same I am perplexed as to why I am not actually breathing fire and spitting lava over the indignity of being arrested. Partly I know that it is because there are almost no grounds whatsoever for objection and also because it is kind of a hoot when push comes to shove.

To be escorted from the house by the police is probably the worst sort of domestic nightmare of every normal citizen. Although having the house burn down would seem to me to be a lot worse ... or getting flooded out with stinking storm run-off. Hell! Most things are worse than getting arrested. I've even been burglarised and that was lot less forgettable. My own worst fear is to be physically attacked, I'm pretty sure I would wet myself if I found msyelf staring at a deadly weapon that was aimed in my direction. In short getting busted is a bad thing but I guess I'll get over it. All the same the road is quite busy and it was matter of excrutiating embarrassment to me that the traffic crawling past slowed down even more to rubberneck the cops making an obvious bust and, bless their Doc Martened size 12's, the cops did what cops do best, they held up their arms to halt the flow and speed my crossing to the other side where the jam sandwich was parked in a no parking zone (the zig-zag approach to pedestrian crossing) and blocking the driveway access to two houses. I couldn't make it up!

The police station is a mile away. It was a short trip then and that is also a cause for bitter amusement. How typical of me even to get short changed on my once-in-a-lifetime trip by police-car. British police cars aren't. If they were there might still be British car manufacturing industry, which there isn't. The police car I was taken away in was a Peugeot or maybe a Vauxhall although as all modern European cars look alike I have trouble telling the difference. Either way it wasn't made in Britain and that's kinda irksome in non-specific but slightly xenophobic way.

I have been to that police station before. It was to produce a vehicle's registration documents and insurance after I got into a pile-up on the M25 London Orbital (it wasn't my fault but that doesn't mean you get to avoid the fun of establishing your legal right to be on the road in the first place. On that occasion I entered via the front doors. Now we pulled up at the side and I was directed to an imposing unmarked set of dark oak double doors. The doors looked quite civilised and I felt a slight easing of my distress levels as I imagined being led into a large cluttered office full of clattering typewriters and sweating overworked cops yelling into phones. Yeah I think I watched too much TV as kid, too. Anyway my delusional dream did not persist beyond the doors. Inside a few steps led downwards ... not good, not good ... and into a spare wide space in a corridor that stretched away into depressing gloom.

The wide space was a sort of office on one side with a high counter topped off with robust looking computer monitor cowls. There were a couple of uniformed men behind the desk, a small TV was mouned high up near the ceiling. It was showing the funeral of the former Prime Minister Ted Heath. Part of one wall was covered with little black and white CCTV screens, the other wall had a stack of lockers one of which had been crudely marked to indicate that it belonged to "Son of Sick Note" (so that's all right then. Cops do do have a sense of humour — although not a very original one — and they are also not above defacing public property for their own amusement.

My escort asked whose funeral it was? On being told it was Edward Heath he retorted that he didn't know he was dead. The custody officer's remark:

"Someone's made a hell of a mistake if he isn't.!" Brought a smile even to my otherwise quite miserable face.

The area opposite the counter was a cell that I took to be the local equivalent of a "drunk tank". It was an alcove separated from the rest of the corridor with steel bars. Anyone locked in would be unable to make contact with anyone outside though because there was also a substantial layer of something thick and transparent. The only item missing was Anthony Hopkins, but it was unoccupied and I hoped I wasn't to be the next occupant.

In vain I studied the floor for a painted line parallel to the counter positioned at an inconvenient distance from the counter and behind which I would be ordered to stand and not to cross ... I really have seen too much TV. Maybe a spell in stir will save my brain from total dissoluion. I was guided to the desk and introduced to the officer behind. No idea what his name was, although I was told, I don't rememember the names of people I want to keep as friends so there seems little point making an effort to remember this one. It's not as though we're likely to meet again next week at the mayor's cocktail party. I do note his function. He is the Custody Officer whose job it is to record my visit in excrutiatingly minute detail as well as to assure himself and his service that all of my rights, legal and human, are respected ... because it would awful if they screwed up somewhere and had later to let me go on a technicality. How ironic it is that the more rights a society so graciously hands to its citizens the longer a citizen has to be deprived of most of them in order to assure that all are being respected.

The booking into custody procedure is stultifyingly tedious. It consists first of the arresting officer making a statement which, in this case, began with an account of the IP's (Injured Party) allegations and ended at my house where I was preparing to take flight. I discovered that I was the PIC — Person In Custody. From there we moved on to establishing my identity which is another time consuming process that seems aimed at checking every damned corner of the national crime records. Not having a criminal record in these instances is a handicap. Everyone should go out and get a criminal record while they are young and carefree and such things don't hurt so much. Believe me it will save a lot of time and worry later on if you ever get in trouble with the law.

Eventually I was told of my basic rights: namely to keep schtoom, to have free legal advice, and a load of other stuff that was printed in a forgettable leaflet. To be honest the separate drugs and alcohol leaflets, provided by charities, were much more interesting and I contemplated declaring a drink problem ... a free shot or three might make the time pass quicker. Of course I am not that stupid! I declared my wish for the lawyer and a phone call to speak to a friend. Then comes the property bit. Ah. That hurts. Whatever possessed me to pack so much stuff into my bag before I left home. My change purse was bulging and every coin has to be counted and logged.

"Don't worry about the coppers," I quipped, oblivious of the pun. "Just leave me with the taxi fare home."

"Sorry," came the reply. "It all has to be counted." There was £19.24 Good lord! If I'd known I was that wealthy I'd have chartered a boat and escaped to Ireland to buy a farm. I was handed my mobile and asked to turn it off. How pathetic can you get? I didn't know how to turn it off, so I got the custody officer to do it for me ... I also got him to show me how to turn it back on for when I got out. That was a rare streak of optimism from me. When, not if. Finally there's a body search. Not an intimate one, but any kind of (uninvited) feeling up is not a pleasant experience, and I've been around long enough to have been frisked a lot during the various IRA campaigns that hurt most of the major British cities over the last 35 years, including Birmingham in 1974 when I was a student there. One of my friends was actually involved, professionally, in those tragedies. He helped to squeeze a gallon of plasma into a girl whose legs had stayed in the pub she'd been in. The girl died before sunrise and no-one I knew got or was offered any kind of counselling.

Eventually I am escorted to a cell. I cannot use description to describe the feelings; the heavy door slams behind you and you can either go mad with any combination of emotions or bite down hard on everything and hunker down into yourself and wait patiently for the situation to improve. I chose the latter. The cell was 10 feet by 6 with a stout wooden shelf that bore a 2" thick vinyl covered mattress. The mattress had a deep indentation in the middle and lesser one that I later found matched my shoulders. I wondered how many crims had reposed here waiting for the outcome of an investigation that might send them to jail or else back into the real world. There was a toilet in an alcove at the narrow end. The ceiling was high, maybe 10 or 11 feet, as were the windows, which were the kind made of thick glass cobbles. Everything was very echoey and there was no handle on the inside of the door. I stepped inside in a sullen mood of resignation. The body search still rankled, I could still feel the latex-covered hands of the female officer tracing the outlines of my flabby and neglected carcass. It hadn't helped that I wasn't wearing any underwear ....

Well dear diary, I will admit that I am lazy cow. But I am also resourceful. I realised that I had a good chance of getting out fairly quickly but that, of course, I had to take legal advice before deciding what to say (or how to say it) in presenting my case when I made myself available for interview. I am the world's worst waiter-in-line, I walk rather than wait for a bus for example. Now I was locked in with nowhere to go and nothing to do and no way to measure the passing of time. I decided then that my only option was to practise some relation tecnhiques. After maybe fifteen minutes I was so relaxed I could almost ooze out under the door. As if! It was so noisy I couldn't concentrate on anything, let alone relaxing. Loud voices, heavy footsteps on hard floors, heavy doors slamming. It's purest bedlam. I concluded that I had experienced all the jail time I was ever going to need. Anything more would amount to cruel and unusual punishment ....

After an hour I was led out to speak to my friend who promised to come and bail me out if I didn't ring her back before midnight. Then back to my cell, where more time elapsed before a friendly face peered through the little hatch that — for the want of the proper term — I shall call the "Joe Sent Me" and asked if I was there because of drugs, presumably because he was able to offer counselling and rehab. Later I was brought a coffee and quite a lot later I was collected to meet my free lawyer.

At last this was going to be sorted out! I asked what was the time. I'd been in custody for four hours.

Oral Descent

I don't believe in fate or bad luck but it's not easy to shrug off those cultural bonds that tie most of us to our superstitious caveman souls. I am sat here feeling lower than a millipede's ankles trying to think of a reason to get activated. I guess blogging will have to do. I woke up to a dull ache from the general area of a tooth that probably needs root canal work but, frankly, too much knowledge is as dangerous as a little. Root treatment is an art that few dentists are actually capable of, and that sweeping generalisation demands explanation. This isn't a dentistry lecture however and suffice it to say that root canal treatement is soundly based in theory but the practise is so thoroughly hit and miss that if it were heart transpantlation there would be laws against it. If this were not true there would not be such legendary fear among the laity when the words root and canl are uttered in close conjunction. In short the pain would have to become a lot more frequent and a lot more severe and a lot less amenable to aspirin for me seriously to consider having the wretched thing's nerves extirpated. Meanwhile I am perfectly content, if not exactly happy, to wallow in self pity.

In spite of the dull ache in my jaw I woke with pleasant feelings of optimism after enjoying a seriously good night's sleep that had run from midnight to almost 8am without a break. That is so unusual for me that it's worth a note. I almost leaped out of bed and pulled the curtains aside to reveal a lovely pale-lit suburban vista. I don't keep much of a close track on the calender — I knew it was Monday and that seemed sufficient &mdash but I was aware that we are already in the neighbourhood of August. Opening the curtains and casement window showed me that the year is already getting late, that fat old sun in the sky is falling, past his zenith, and the morning light is noticeably thinner. In case that sounds like a reason to be sad it isn't. I love the passage of the seasons. The waxing and waning of the moon, the strenghtening and weakening of the sun's light, the changing patterns of life. I love it all.

The bright sky was also welcome because the weather here has been mostly cyclonic since I moved in &mdash my old student neighbourhood a few miles east of here was actually struck by an unusually powerful (T3-T4) tornado a few days ago leaving hundreds to face devastation and rebuilding. Today Britain sits under a ridge between two weak highs and the skies are bright and optimistic and so I flung open my bedroom door, feeling all froody, to see how Little Mad felt about the day.

After my first night here I took to shutting her into the kitchen overnight. It is where her food is and it's far enough from the bedroom that her plaintiff cries wouldn't disturb me — there's little one can do other than ignore such mewlings, if only to get my own rest. The kitchen was unoccupied. It was catless. It is a very small kitchen, but that did not stop me from performing an almost comic double-take. I guess we will never really move far enough from our monkey ancestry to be able to fool the putative visitor from Mars observing us from afar. We rely on our senses to tell us about the world around us but when we fail to see what we expected we go against reason and look again, in the same places, with utterly stupid optimism. I confess that I actually looked under the wool throw that I had folded into a pad for her to sit on.

It was obvious that she had managed to escape and I quickly checked the other rooms but I had already noticed that the little casement window in the kitchen was ajar. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of animal ingenuity. How much of so-called intelligence is merely persistence anyway? She started out as an untamable free spirit and it looks like she may finish up that way. She very much belonged to the old house anyway, it was the only place she had ever known after leaving her birthplace. And she had lived there as long as I had, bar a month or so.

At the time I moved into the old house with EP I was doing a little courier work, the sort that mostly involved collecting and delivering parcels. I spent a lot of time in the rural counties to the west of here and Mirelly found me while I waiting at a farmhouse door for someone to answer my knock. She was about three months old, black with white socks, white whiskers and white markings on her ventral surfaces ... there was one smeary looking mark on her chin that looked like she had just been caught at the cream jug. Her chest was well marked with a fairly standard tuxedo style bib, but her belly was the cutest. It was a ragged mixture of narrow, white, meandering bands that I soon took to referring to as her frilly underwear.

I have lived with a good number of cats and never found two that were alike. The little black and white fuzzball that came home with me a few weeks after we'd moved in was so full of attitude I quickly decided that she needed a big and dignified name. Big to go with her personality and dignified because she behaved so madly that it was even harder than usual not to laugh at her kittenish antics. Even the way she walked seemed contrived to arouse a chuckle. I chose Mirelly — a name I took from the scary female creation of Larry Niven: Mirelly-Lyra Zeelashisthra, a character in the novel A World Out Of Time whose overweening arrogance and vaulting ambition and irresistible charms probably say more about the author's unconscious misogyny than anything else ... but it's a great name and I always loved it! Mirelly the cat was well suited to the name. Vociferous and always around for mealtimes she kept the house well stocked with dead rodents and at least one pigeon that had been ringed. (She had neatly eaten one whole breast down to the keel bone before staggering off to leave the rest for the flies. I am ashamed to admit that I disposed of the evidence ... what if it had been a champion racing pigeon? Though I don't suppose that champion anythings are the sort who stop off for a rest halfway through a race.)

Mostly she was a free spirit. I had another cat at the time and they never made friends; a truce, yes, but fraternity isn't really in the feline psyche. Within days she had figured out the cat door and left the building. It took her more than three months to work the same magic in reverse so she was more often out than in and that never seemed to bother her. I guess she was born to open skies on the farm and being shut in never appealed to her. All the same I have moved several cats from one home to another and, in spite of the protests and fuss, keeping the cat in for a couple of weeks is the only sure way I know to get them fully imprinted on the new territory. I haven't lost one yet. On the other hand I never had one go AWOL within days of moving ....

So my day has started on a high only to fall so quickly off its perch that it took my incautious slurp of tea to reawaken the slumbering but not entirely quiet beast that is my right upper second bicuspid. Yow! It hasn't stopped hurting yet and since I used up all the aspirin yesterday it looks like I shall have sortie forth in search of fresh supplies. (Wonders if I could swap ibuprofen for aspirin somewhere ... I have tons of Adil and Neurofen but ibuprofen is contra-indicated by Atenolol. I don't use paracetamol because I consider it a relatively useless analgesic with serious toxicity. Besides, aspirin is more effective than heroine for dental pain.

Anyway losing Mirelly is strike two and my neanderthal roots are showing because I am sat here waiting for the third kick in the arse.

I really have plenty to be getting on with and maybe the cat will show up later. I will call my old neighbors later and ask them keep an eye open for her. I am thankful that I removed her collar that doubled as a key to let her come and go through the cat door. I had locked the door to allow her to get in but not out the day before the move and as far as I know it remains that way. The old house is only a couple of miles away and the possibility that she might find her way back there is strong. It would be awful if she succeeded and got inside only to starve because she couldn't get out again. Whatever her future I feel confident that she can feed herself, I also feel that she will show up again.

If I hadn't left that flipping kitchen window unlatched I would not have this anxiety and shame and misery. But that's my cross and I'll bear it with all my other woes. Maybe it is just true that I am never really happy unless I am miserable ... except that I know that isn't true, exactly. It's also true that my sunny outer shell isn't the real me either. Inside I am a turmoil of worries and doubts and fears and I don't suppose that makes me a lot different from anyone else either! I's just that I have spent so much of my life not absorbing the obvious that I have an awful lot of catching up to do. I still hope that I can do some of that catching up with Little Mad whom I am already missing more than I want to dwell upon right now.