Further sky tales

 

The day after my last post about strange celestial things something else happened from that part of the outside. If proof were needed that I am a drama queen deep down or skittish at best this incident best describes it. I was lying on the sofa reading a book and the boy was stretched out on the other sofa with his headphones on playing a game. All very serence. The silence was broken by the sound of what I first thought to be a go kart going extremely fast over the gravel outside. It didn't distract me too much. Very quickly though it was drowned by the nasally whining sound of something very high pitched getting louder and louder and louder. This freaked me. I thought I could hear metal ripping apart somehow and jumped up in panic. In all honesty my first thought was a plane crash. That was the sound in the movies when a plane is nosediving to the screaming of the whirring engines. I didn't know what to expect as I reached the window but something shot by- an aircraft. It was dark but not completely and so it was the light I saw rather than a shape. My heart instantly settled.

But the sound did not die down which was strange. That was until another shot past. Finally the sound did start to fade- quickly actually. Mind in overdrive again. Are they fighters being scrambled to an ongoing incident? Was one chasing the other? I started to think of the impending crisis on the Ukraine border and how I have read a few times of RAF jets having to warn off Russian vessels encroaching in our space around the isle. As always my mind runs amok.

The incident was given a place on the BBC website as I think it freaked out a lot of people as well as myself. It turns out they were US Air Force F-15s on night training. That is the story any way but to be honest I am not sure I am buying it as I have never seen fighters in the central belt that low. There is a video in the article taken by a member of the public but it does not do it justice. They don't sound loud and don't look like they are going fast but in real time it was very different.

So that was the little incident of the week which I am thankful for because otherwise I would have nothing to say really except this is the worse start to a year I can remember. I had a fantastic 4 day period of walks way longer than I expected after a long lay off about 2 weeks ago which really gave me heart for this year. But I have paid the price heavily for it. 2 weeks on I am in pain and not feeling great which will pass in time but really not much fun and not fair. I just want to get back into it again and start pushing myself out again. Instead for the past week at least I have been mostly indoors except for dog walks out the front and shopping. As I said though it will pass. Its given me a chance to read again which I am enjoying so I'll get back to San Francisco aboard the ship "Ghost" and rejoin Jack London's "Sea Wolf" which is one of my favourite books but its been 30 years since I read it so I cannot remember much. 

Celestial phenomena

 

When I was young I don't remember anything strange in the sky. Maybe that is my mind. My memories are of long hot summers of clear blue skies and winters white with greys at best in between those periods. Rain sure but seldom thunder or even lightening. These latter two were big things because they were rare events but the thunder never changed and the lightening was either sheet or fork. Sleet and snow and other little variations but always the same sun in the day and at night a full, half or quarter moon. Simple. Maybe it was always like that. I possibly never looked up much in my youth and teens but I was certainly mroe aware into my twenties and thirties. In the past decade though that simplicity has changed- visibly. Yes we get more information now but even if there was no Internet I would see and hear these thinngs for myself.

Scrambled

 

It has taken me fifty years to make scrambled eggs for the first time. In this case scrambled egg on toast. Five years ago and before that would not have been a big thing. I didn't cook. I don't really cook now but I do it more than I used to. I cook things from scratch which I would never have done in the past. I would love to cook more but we don't have a kitchen big enough for that. And you need that. Let us not kid on about that. You need a kitchen, all the utensils and money to buy all the ingredients. Frequently I will look up a recipe to cook something and realise a take away or microwave meal is a lot cheaper. The TV is full of programs about cooking. I remember watching the naked chef years ago but I was more fascinated with all the surrounded Jamie Oliver's life than the cooking itself. I never watched cooking programs at all as I had no interest in food. Food was a means to an end. I was never happier than when I got dinner out the way and not have to think about it. Yet now because my wife watches Master Chef frequently and Bake Off less frequently I find myself fascinated. But I could never do it. The truth is you don't see poor people on these shows. If you take the likes of Junior bake off for example how the hell does a poor kid get to make all these various dishes to fall back on? It doesn't happen. And I find that being more and more of a turn off if I am honest the older I get. I can't watch the Apprentice, Dragon's Den, Master Chef, the Repair Shop and all the other posh filled shows on TV that my wife laps up. I even find myself turning off Radio 2 which is the station I usually listen to due to someone calling in about going for the weekend to their holiday lodge in Snowdonia or crying because they lost £7k deposit on a skiing holiday in France due to Covid. I just find people having to tell you about their material gains nauseating in the same way as the same people have to tell you the names of all their pets when they recite a story concerning them as if it adds to the narrative. Of course if I had wealth I might not find my thinking running down the same pathways. But I am not and it does.

Anyway this is not about wealth, materialism or even cooking. It is about stuck thinking and the way it can cause anxiety in a way I assume is similar to OCD. I don't have OCD but I do find myself getting stuck in a thought loop brought on my anxiety which is iritating beyond reason. When I was at the shop the other night I got eggs, bacon and bread amongst other things to do for lunch over the week. From there I kept getting caught in a strange loop of stuck thinking. How did it start? It started with a thought about bread and eggs. I'll have thought for lunch. Toast with either boiled, scrambled or fried egg. Or maybe even French toast for a change. Boiled egg I used to love but I have gone off a bit and actually went off eggs completely for a bit. I used to love a pickled egg but the last time I had a jar I started to find the egg really rubbery and did not enjoy the 2 I had- chucked the other 2 out the window. There was something suggestive there which I think I knew without it being said. It was around the same time as my oldest daughter and wife stopped eating eggs because they had watched something online. Why would you do that? As a vegetarian my wife relied heavily on eggs. We used to enjoy a fried egg roll when we went out. Even now they both won't eat egg. And without knowing I think I know why and I assume that it was to do with an Asian delicacy I heard about later on a podcast but my mind will look no further than that. Even without actually knowing I found eggs a turn off. Slowly I have gotten back into them starting one day with French toast but keeping the egg soaked bread to a minimum. But not boiled as I still find them too rubbery, not scrambled as I was put off them a few years ago when my wife made me them laced with cheese andit turned my stomach. Not fried because I just didn't find it appealing. I'd have the egg at some point but for now I will just have bacon sanwiches. Done. Except for days I had that same conversation internally several times a day not realising it to begin with then getting really annoyed when I realised it. And always with the same outcome. And it means nothing. To anyone else its no biggy but it was really getting to me. 

Anyway in the end I had scrambled egg on toast as pictured above. It was nice enough, I did it more to break the loop than anything else and it did. I was reminded of a few times my wife and I went on long walks and ended in the Morrison's cafe eating the same dish. And it was nice enough. My other reluctance to it thought was the clean up. I don't mind washing dishes but I used to hate when my wife made the kids scrambled egg. I hated the texture or the loose bits and how it stuck to everything- scrubbing pads were ruined. A search told me to clean right away with cold water and that did help but still that is what will put me off making it again in future any time soon. To be honest I would rather walk to Morrisons and get a better version. Stuff made for you is always better. I am still not great with egg as I still know deep down why the other two have stopped without being told. Hopefully in time that will change. And in time I hope to start cooking more but apart from cost my family are so fussy its not worthwhile. Also with my wife being vegetarian it would mean a meat substitute in some cases. That is another weitd one. I made quorn enchildads one night for every one yet and all enjoyed except me who chucked them as I could not stomach eating a meat alternative. If someone had made them for me and not told me I would have eaten them no problem at all but knowing is different. I cannot get past those thoughts just like the ones about eggs. My mind is as scrambled as the eggs I fear. 

Adjustments

 

With the number of Omicron cases hitting new highs each day it seems a strange time for schools to return for the new year but that is what they done today. Mind you so far the bigger numbers are not seemingly not as bad as the hospitalisations which resulted from the Delta variant which is something at least. It has been said that this is not as much due to the variant but more to do with the amount of people triple vaccined or at least that is what I have taken from it but I have to admit I am not immersed in it. I catch bits by accident rather than seeking it out. I still not have been vaccinated which I also haven't tried to seek despite wanting it. I can't go to a vaccine centre and I think the medical people have enough to deal with so I stay away from people, wear my mask and wash my hands until that time comes. The kids have all had their first dose and the boy at the time he did became the youngest to do so in Perthshire. That is where the youngest two had theirs. The oldest went on her own to a vaccine centre out of town to queue on a cold Sunday morning which says a lot given she has a needle phobia. Fingers crossed this one passes more peacefully than the first strain which is still with us- I think. And despite how I started maybe it is better to get it out there. That though is easy to say when you have not been adversely affected by it. Many would wish differently.

Right now I am in a bit of an adjustment period from the holidays to getting into a routine. That was the idea at least. The past week I have not been doing much as I have been plagued by a stomach bug which is thankfully just past but I am still struggling to get started with this post viral lethargy which will take a bit of time to shake. So its a good time to adjust and plan and make that plan for the coming week. That plan is to start a new routine to stick to. I won't go into it but a bit of everything from shaving, dressing more smartly, a period for reading, period for CBT, period for walking and many more things. A routine to work to which I have never had since my working days. Having cereal and lunch for example. I think it will help. Its not something to record and measure but just do and feel inside if it helping. I expect sometime this year probably early the DWP routine to start again. I would love within all that to finally find an alternative- a work from home job or the like. Lots of hopes but I need more than ever to start putting these things into practice.

Its a new year, a new page. Time will tell.