Across the pond

It was only when I received a message this afternoon from a fellow manic depressive who had got something from reading what I have written about this condition, that I realised that I had been depressed deep down inside for the last two weeks. Which is the main reason I have not written a blog for two weeks.

Depressed about the state of the world. Notably  the news that Barack Obama has plunged in the US approval ratings to a record low and that the health bill is still a long way from approval. Depressed by a nasty cough, which is also a reminder that diseases of the flesh are bound to strike with increasing frequency as I get even older than I am now. Depressed because because nothing I thought of writing seemed worth writing. Depressed because so few other human beings share my concerns.

Since I am a manic depressive, just one positive message can jolt me into a manic phases, in which the ideas come tumbling so fast, that I cannot get them down quick enough. And I don’t have time to eat. (Which reminds me of another worry. Replaced the scales, which broke two years ago, and found my weight is a stone below the usual.)

So I will go get some dinner soon.

After expressing my anger about the current fashion for labelling us lot, ‘bi-polar’. Manic depression describes my temparament much more accurately. I spend days when I don’t even feel like getting out of bed, cannot even get out of the starting gate on any worthwhile task. Then I switch and want to sprint a mile.

Have to sprint, because if I don’t I might get submerged by the glooms, yet again.

Still, ‘mustn’t grumble’, which is the title of a book about the English I got for my birthday.

Which I will blog about, if I ever get time to read it.

But before I go dinner.

One key thing about us manic depressives, we are all different from each other.

As are all human beings.

Which is another reason why I doubt the creation myth. Human beings are not cast in the same mold cast by one celestial sculptor. They are beings who have been shaped by genes, social and economic background and by the life experiences they have lived through.

Which is, when you think about it, really wonderful.

In the dream I am hurrying to a West End theatre to see a Shakespeare play which is probably, Much Ado About Nothing. I am late. The usherette, a striking brunette who resembles the new girl friend of my wife’s cousin, whom I met for the first time on Sunday, tells me  I shall have to stand at the back until the first interval. But once inside I join a group of middle aged men who are sitting on the steps talking amongst themselves in rather loud voices with public school accents.

 They are also watching the action, taking place on the stage a long way below – we must be in the gallery. The actors are too far away for me to hear more than a few words of what they saying. But I hear enough of them to know that the words they are speaking are not those of the Shakespeare play. And they are all in modern dress. What I am watching must be the creation of a contemporary playwright who has been inspired to write something of his own, loosely adapted from the original.

 Within a few minutes the first interval arrives and I head for the bar. In the corridor I go through a doorway leading to a white spiral staircase. It is unlike any staircase I have seen. On either side there tooth like pillars of irregular height, vaguely reminiscent of the fangs of a tiger.  It is narrow, too narrow for people coming up to pass people going down. It seems to go on endlessly, and I have no wish to climb them all on the way back. I want out. But the youths also walking down tell me there is no exit until the bottom, which we reach eventually.

 The staircase ends, not in the street, buton what must be the river bed. It seems much bigger than the actual Thames river bed, more like the seashore. All I can see in front of me is sand and water. No sign of the opposite bank. There is a light mist which adds to the beauty of the scene, which might have been painted by Turner. The tide is coming in and as I walk along the shore I have to step around rivulets of water.

 Soon I meet up with middle aged men from the balcony, still talking to each other in loud voices. But happy to help me. I am trying to light a cigarette, but both of the two lighters I have with are refusing to ignite.  Three of them offer their lighters. After the first so satisfying inhalation, I wake up and discover I am in our London flat, looking out on a white winter wonderland.

 The snow is back and my guess is there has been a fall of about two inches during the night.

 That is all I remember. But my belief is that the unconscious mind is telling us stories and painting pictures for us during the night, and that what I am remembering is part of much bigger construction. Whether or not the unconscious is sending me messages with important meanings I am not sure. But what I do know is that my free night-time film is sometimes much more entertaining than much on offer by the one hundred odd channels on my television set.

Snow scare stories are still dominating the media. Both daughters rang up yesterday afternoon to warn us to stock up because heavy falls were predicted in the south of England today. Listening to the BBC 8 o-clock news this morning added to the dire tidings. Nearby Hampshire had a foot of snow and some motorists had been trapped in their cars on the A3.

Quite an anti-climax when I drew back the curtains. In our part of Dorset we have yet to see anything so dramatic. More a dusting of parts of the landscape as my pics demonstrate.

My children got closer to Charmouth’s big swim than I did. Here are four of their pics.

It was a frosty night down here in Dorset but by 11 AM the sun had broken through just in time for Charmouth’s Christmas Day fancy dress swim. Dozens, young and old,  dashed into the chilly waves, cheered on by hundreds more. With all that adrenalin  flowing it did not feel as cold as it was. So they told me, because I decided to take some pics instead of making the plunge.

On your marks……

Everybody in…..

Colourful splash…..

And, now back to the turkey…..

“I did it, Dad’……

Courtly gent helps his lady over the pebbles…..

Down in Dorset the kids have been missing all the excitement. While  the television screens and the newspapers have been full of spectacular pics of the worst winter for years, we have not yet had a single flake here. And the chances of a White Christmas must now be a million to one against. The gas man who came  to fix the heating system, which had decided to give up the ghost so we could have a real old-fashioned Christmas, had heard rumours of snow in Winchester.

He was right, as I discovered when I dashed up to London for a pre-Christmas party on Monday evening. When we drove back on Tuesday morning the M3 in Surrey and Wiltshire was an almost magical winter wonderland, with snow painting  the trees white. The sun came out to brighten the scene and offer a beautiful picture.

 Alas, I did not have time to stop. So all I have to offer is the picture taken from my London flat on Tuesday morning. At least it demonstrates that London Overground (that’s  what we all knew as the North London Line) was providing a better service than EuroStar. Despite the alleged unusual nature of this year’s snow flakes, London Overground managed to provide normal service. Whereas on EuroStar the passengers on five trains were trapped in the tunnel for 22 hours.

All of the passengers, except for Claudia Schiffer, for whom the Eurostar managers sent a special car.

That’s high tech privatised public transport for you. My vote in the next election will go the party who gives the tunnel contract to folk like those currently running London Overground, who have also planted flower boxes on the stations.

…….transport depended on the likes of my great grandfather. I found today in one of those cardboard boxes, the only surviving picture of him.  John Jones was a saddler, who specialised in making the collars, without which the gentry could not pull their carriage and pairs.

 He was, according to the Walsall local newspaper obituary, one of the stoutest members of the realm, weighing in at 35 stone, but in an age when obesity meant gravitas.

He was big all round and the only other photo I have seen was of him in a doorway, where his head projected above the top of the door.

My father never knew him, because he died in 1878, aged 38 when my grandfather was not yet ten.

 He was a legend rather than a reality in my childhood. He lived on only in the memory of my grandfather, who kept this photo pasted inside his membership card for the Wolverhampton Bowling Club.

None of his sons followed in his footsteps followed in his footsteps. The eldest John became a housebuilder. My grandfather, Frank, lived for sport. He was good enough at soccer to have a trial for the Wolves and made the Staffordshire cricket team. To keep the family going he did a variety of jobs.

My father in a kind of way did follow in the footsteps of great grandfather. He made the rubber collars for the wheels of the horseless carriages.

 The photograph shows its age but if only I can really learn Photoshop properly I may be able to restore it.

Father Christmas arrived in Charmouth last night, and scuppered into his grotto, sensibly, because it was drizzling with rain and the temperature was not much above freezing point. The children queued up to sit on his knee. Meanwhile the locals provided some decent jazz and some of the children were assembled to sing carols under the Christmas tree.

We all had a very good time, thanks to the mulled wine provided by the estate agent and one of the two local hairdressers. The butcher stayed open to offer a barbecue, but you had to choose between hamburgers and – hamburgers. So I went across the road to the caf and had a banger, which is my preferred meal, standing in the rain on a cold night.

 The Post Office and the newsagents stayed open to join in the festivities. And two of the local constabulary were on hand to stop the half dozen cars who wanted to drive down our main street in the middle of all this.

If only I had mastered the new technology I would have provided a movie of the jazz band. But you will have to be satisfied with a couple of still pics. Neither of which is going to win any competions.

Yesterday I bounced downstairs in a smokefree house, cleaned everything up, did my packing and was ready to drive up to Londan by 11 PM. The Spirit decided otherwise – my Prius Spirit. The boot would refused to open. I loaded my luggage on the back seat, jumped into the driving seat, inserted the magic key, Nothing happened. Page 297 of the manual offered a solution, showing a picture of a bit of plastic I could strip off, to expose an emergency lever, which would open the boot and give me access to the battery under the floor mats. Removed all the luggage, upped the backseats, crawled into the car, which was facing up hill on the drive at a 45 degree angle. But the lever would not budge.

With difficulty, pulled out the mats and the plastic tray, but no-way could I get the battery out from this position. And could not connect the charger because the positive terminal was covered by a red plastic box which would not come off. Rang the AA and waitted for them to arrive, gnashing my teeth, and seething with inner rage. Until I got the last pack of Camels out of the tin and inhaled the blessed weed.

The AA man, who had deal with the Prius before, wheeled up his portable booster, attached the jump lead to the positive terminal by pushing it under the red plastic box (now why did not I think of that?). And the car started immediately.

So why had the battery run down, I asked him? I had not left the lights on, and though I had not used the car for four days, the battery had only been supplying the minimal juice for the alarm. He was not sure of the answer, but he did point out that it is a very small battery for the size of car and extensive electronics. And it is now nearly three years old. 

Any reader got a better explanation?

By the time it was fixed I decided it was too late to drive to London. Gave it test run to recharge the battery and restock the fridge.

This morning I got some compensation. A calm sea after the storms and a colourful dawn.

While the army was building a temporary bridge to re-connect the two halves of the town of Workington in Cumbria, the storms moved to the West Country last night. Several householders in Plymouth spent Sunday morning hanging out their carpets to dry. In Charmouth my anemometer was showing gusts of 70 mph when I woke up coughing, but not as much as yesterday. Enjoyed the no smoking experiment for most of the day. The craving did not hhit me until I sat down at the computer.My first picture shows how last night’s wind caused a quite sturdy bench to do a double somersault. the second picture shows that tthe sea was still quite rough for the rest of the morning. But in the early afternoon the sun  broke through.