Guilt

Even thinking about writing a chirpy blog when the breadth of experience at this time is so vastly different for everyone, has me wondering what to share. For those who’s duty would seem to be to work until you drop and for those of us who’s duty is to stay at home and be safe - how does one reconcile the chasm between those places?
I can’t, therefore I won’t try.
My mum spent the last 14 weeks of her life in a Care Home next to one of her greatest fears - Faslane Base, where Nuclear Subs passed by her window under escort. She couldn’t see by this time, thankfully, but being in a care home - no matter how hard they tried to make it a better experience - filled her with misery. It would have been hard to imagine anything could make it worse for her than it was. We had a schedule in place that made sure there was a member of her family or friends who visited every evening. My dad visited every day.
She was exhausted and had few words. I asked her one day how she was coping with all the visitors (one group of hill walking friends came every Thursday afternoon and staff called them The Laughing Group). It took her a while to come up with just one word. “Essential.”

I cried when I heard about the people dying in Care Homes over the course of one weekend or one day. Without family or friends.
I can’t imagine the strain on the Carers and the wish to protect their own families.

But I’m just going to take a wee verbal and pictorial walk around one or two positives of where we are personally at the moment as it’s not possible to predict where we will be in a couple of weeks hence.
Firstly, Meg made it home in the nick of time and on my birthday. After an abortive set of flights and a new set that took her to Dublin, she was one of 3 passengers on the flight to Glasgow and she and I were the only ones in the multi-storey car park when I picked her up.
16 months ago, I’d made the error of mentioning that since her return from Uni, I’d discovered that she and I really couldn’t live together. She acknowledged this was true and within the month had turned a 6 week holiday to NZ into a 16 Month trip which only ended due to COVID-19. In my mind I’d been thinking of somewhere a bit closer - like next door.
The first phase will be to learn to live together in harmony and compromise on some of our living standards.
Perhaps I can teach her some old fashioned skills…….like darning.

My beloved jeans.

Meg was unimpressed. ‘You may as well darn yourself a new pair as they are only going to fall apart round the fixed bits.’

Fair point.
Meg spent some time tidying up the house and clearing out cluttered cupboards. ‘It’s nice to see you have milk jugs, Mum. That’ll be nice when we sit down for a cuppa.’
Next day - ‘where are the milk jugs, Mum?’

Ah, well - I’d grabbed a moment to sneak to the caravan where I could practice some drawing. Meg was no more impressed with this than she was with the darning. Another fair point but if you dont practice, you don’t get better at it.

With that in mind, Meg has practiced the art of cookie making and is a wee bit ahead of my drawing skills.

Spook watching tv - just give me time, I’ll get there.

Been layering colours all winter. Trying to find images now - give me time.

As part of living together again, it’s important to find some space…..

Banavie Hill - Spook over estimating social distance

Moving slowly and quietly, no heavy breathing (I would seem to have given up running as there is no hurry - it didnt take much persuasion,) I looked down the banking of the burn to see a big dog fox walking below me. When I move even slower I see lots of patterns and have time to draw on the ground.

The one above is a stress mandala as I made the mistake of making it very close to where Finn was chopping wood. He then interviewed me with endless questions on what I was doing and why.
“Do you think maybe you’ve Joined a cult and just haven’t noticed?”

I picked up a passenger from the last mandalas which Spook had to remove with his special tic removing card, so I’ve given earth art a rest for now.
One might ask - what HAS Spook been doing with his time, apart from de-infesting his wife?

I’ll tell you about him next..