“Run from what’s comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I’ll be mad.”
A couple of days ago someone clicked on a post of mine where I got salty about people from The Royal Kingdom of Fife being inter-bred…
I’m related to…
Samuel Greig married Sarah (1752–1793), daughter of Alexander Cook. Their union would give rise to children and grandchildren who later married into the Russian and German nobility.
Mmmn. In the 20th century the Greig’s and the Cook’s married again.
My Dad’s sister, Joy, married Archie Cook. Both of them local.
They had three daughters and the last time I went to a full Scottish Ceilidh was their eldest daughter, Fiona’s, wedding in Kinghorn. We don’t do pompous. FUN and Family are the Name of the Game
OMG. LOTS of men in kilts. Lots of music. Lots of dancing. My Dad even asked me for a dance but I was 8 months pregnant with my first son and felt like a heffalump. I couldn’t even toast the bride with a dram :o(
This song, this rendition of this song, brings me to tears.
Yes. Mothers can be abusive and toxic but a boy-child NEEDS a guiding male to help him grow into a REAL MAN.
The family has been broken down in so many ways.
Porn and SeX addictions and the need for money have made so many men HIT & QUIT & MOVE TO THE NEXT AVAILABLE.
Mothers and sons can be overwhelming and stunt growth. I know. I’ve never not been there for them and the price is being paid now. I even do their washing for them :o)
I swear to God that Frazer was a deeply entrenched Scottish Presbyterian.
Dour….rhymes with sewer.
I grew up with these Dour….rhymes with sewer…family members. My mother was afraid of NO-ONE. Except Lily. My paternal grandmother. Mum admitted that to me several times.
Me, myself & I am/are (?) more of an Epicurean.
Eat. Drink. And be Merry. For tomorrow we die.
I KNOW this to be true. In real life. My Mum was there one day. Gone the next.
You can be the healthiest, fittest, most sober, most select person in the whole world but get on a bike or in a car or on a plane or walk down the street and it’s……Oh. Pearly Gates, eh? Hi, St. Peter. WTF am I doing here?
Never go to bed on an argument with loved ones. NEVER disrespect/denigrate/deny/dispose of dearly loved ones.
Talking of FEY. I was living in Ulster with an 18 month old and newly pregnant when an urge came upon me to go home. I HAD to go home. No hindsight here. My Mum and I had been estranged for over a year with no contact but -still – this feeling was strong. I KNEW that it would be the last time that I’d see someone in the family. I thought it was Nan (Nana-Anne as my boys called her.)
So I went home for a week. Told my parents that they were going to have their second grandchild in 7 months.
6 weeks later my Mum died very suddenly.
Don’t be an egotistical/I’m always right/what the eff do you know? arse.
We are both escaping real life, nicking a Campervan and finding a mountain and/or loch to live in the shelter off. Sans husbands, sans kids, sans drudge.
Her ancestry is wonderful. Welsh, White Jamaican, a teensy bit of Scottish and her Dad was born of a German Baron.
Why the Highlands? Nobody knows :o)
I’ve been watching these videos today in preparation for life in the wild mountainsides with a mad woman who has led me into many a madcap adventure since we were kids !!!
BTW : the image above is a Tartan Favour. My wedding cake was decorated with them and all the family was given a piece of MacGregor Tartan as a token of love and fidelity.
This past week and more I’ve gone back to how I was over 3 years ago and it is Wonderful :o)
To wake up in the wee quiet hours of 1 or 2 or 3am with an intense desire to answer some questions that my sleeping brain brought up used to be so normal for me.
A few days back I found a thesis about Baba Yaga and Black Madonna and I let it sit there in the little grey cells.
This IS syncretism in all it’s glory but that is NOT a bad thing.
Here we have the BLACK imposed on the Madonna for totally unknown reasons……or maybe not so unknown.
Like Lavinia, here is the woman, that oh so essential part of procreation, cast down into the deep dark.
She is witch, BogeyWoman, Bitch, Evil, Whore, Second Class, The Moon but never the Sun and all that jazz.
Himself and I watched a video this morning. One of the Handsome DeVils series and the woman who fell for the “handsome devil” was called Loretta.
OMG. If he said it once, he said it ten times…………
From now on, I want you all to call me Loretta. It’s my right as a man. I want to have babies.
You haven’t got a womb. Where is the foetus going to gestate? You gonna keep it in a box?
My home is surrounded by trees. We live in a secluded oasis, not visible from the roads or fields.
This morning, Himself took all his chain saw gear out with him to work. He’s on the third week of Emergency Response/Rescue and when the weather is like this – they can spend all night clearing fallen trees.
I love the sound. It’s much like living by the sea.
Very relaxing :o)
Oh. And free wood for the burner makes up for 3 weeks of seeing each other for less than an hour each day.
DD wrote more than the Lymond Chronicles and The House of Niccolo.
She also wrote a series of books featuring Johnson Johnson and his boat Dolly.
Each book was titled Dolly and….
We know very little about JJ. He has a boat called Dolly. He turns up in all parts of the world. He solves stuff.
Remember – these books were written in the times, 60’s/70’s, when Dolly Bird meant a dim and ditzy girl who needed a MAN (even if he wore thick bi-focals) to HELP HER.
These days an original DOLLY BIRD book is out of my pay grade. I have a few.
I have this one.
Dolly and The Singing Bird.
P.S. Can you see the influence of one of Dorothy and her her husband’s closest friends……Ian Fleming here?
Altered Images were a Glasgow band from the ’80’s and their song Happy Birthday was a favourite of mine.
Day After Tomorrow is my late Mum’s birthday.
Next month BFF & I will reach an iconic birthday….though hers is exactly 3 weeks before me :o)
Yeah. She knows. Having been BFF’s since we were both 11, I may have mentioned it once or twice (!)
Bloody Scorpios. Tchss!
One day – when me and she reach 100 – we WILL celebrate like this. Because everyone’ll think we’re old and demented.
Yes :o)
Apropos of nothing – I HATE OCTOPUSSIES. Himself used to snorkel off the Rock of Gibraltar and catch the horrible things. Once he brought one home and put it in my freezer. The bastard sea creature squirted black ink everywhere. Calamari? I’d rather eat all four of my car’s tyres, thank you very much.
Oh and btw : Travis are Scottish too & poor wee Greta is still aLive&KicKinG arse.
My Girl Monday came to see me this morning. She wants to learn how to crochet. So we had her first crochet lesson.
This girl is feisty and confident and totally open. But when she first learned that she had breast cancer, she (almost) gave up.
Weeks into her treatment, she’s now back. As sassy as always and totally unfazed about talking through her experiences. Which are already many and sometimes brutal.
6 hours a day in hospital getting chemo! Hence the need to occupy herself.
I, inadvertently, brought her to tears as she left. How?
I just told her the truth.
We love you.
An open mind and heart can cure so much.
Be truthful and honest. Don’t hoard every resentment inside. Face EVERYTHING, totally naked, and give thanks.
When you are born to man who plays the snare drum and a woman who ALWAYS had the radio on and sang – you come into life surrounded by music.
To this day, the snare sound makes the hairs stand on end.
When said father is also a Scot…….hopeless.
I’ll leave a light on
?
Only for those who want it.
And this candle is now very dim. Sadly.
P.S. Dad taught me how to tighten the skin on his drum. A wonderful memory of being in the barracks with the band preparing for a performance. No sticky fingers allowed near brass!
For me this is a little too little a little too late.
For others it is perfect.
I’ve no issues with Neil Oliver. Apart from on the historical timeline but that’s NOT his bad.
Neil Oliver – ‘…digital enslavement is coming…’
It’s been here for years, sweetheart. Digital Enslavement.
In my humble opinion, so much of the yt truther movement are using “facts” gained via films, games, TV and soi-disant BESTSELLER books.
So you see a film with two moons together, one of them with a perfect map of the earth on. Tahdah. Let’s make a video about how the “Elite/Phoenician/Bohemian Grove/RULERS have deceived us.
WE ARE THE CHOICES WE MAKE.
I’ve said this so many times because I’m also a casualty of my own choices.
I once chose to believe in someone who believed in playing games that were deliberately played to destroy one of us.
And THAT is PERSONAL.
I’m not here to RULE THE WORLD. I’m here to protect those I love and care for.
The slow cooker is paying for itself already. Yesterday I cooked a chicken in it and had the foresight to leave all the juicy juices, chicken stock and leftovers in said pot.
Why?
I NEED CHICKEN SOUP FOR MY SOUL.
Jackie recipe :
Randomly dice up one onion, a few carrots, a few potatoes and fry them gently in olive oil for some time. Add the juices from the crockpot plus more Chicken Oxo cube stock and a splash of herbes de provence. Simmer until all the veg is tender.
Let the pan cool, add a few chunks of rescued chicken then bash it all about a lot with a whizzy thing until you get a smooth something – I had to add a bit of milk here to help the whizz.
Season to taste. Lots of salt and pepper.
Fry off some bacon lardons. Add to the mix.
I have some double cream to hand and may go a bit creamy when I add the rest of the chicken and reheat everything about 5pm.
It started early. I hate being chivvied so I did my protest, had another mug of coffee, wrote a shopping list and we ventured into town.
A Sunday morning lie-in is all well and good but not when the day is gorgeous and empty of traffic and full of bird song.
We had a big disagreement about people who were once close to us — as in our mate who was Family Liaison Officer in the Soham Murder Investigation. Long, boring story.
Himself was always the soldier. I was always the policeman when we were in the RMP.
Feeling the need for some light relief.
He’s never been a fan of Billy (MY Comedy HERO) but will admit he’s funny. We have both been long time fans of Kenny Everett.
We had an amah in Singapore and she taught my Mum how to make it.
Mum – being English – translated it to feed young kids and then older kids. I know the difference. I had authentic Nasi Goreng in Singapore a few years back. HOT as ….
Her recipe used pork, liver, prawns, omelette, spring onions and rice.
I used to line the the prawns up around the edge of my plate like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief.
Then she’d make me eat all those fishy little beasties :o(
Enter the soy sauce.
Today I marinated the pork in sesame oil, hoisin and soy sauce before frying it.
GREAT SUCCESS.
My boys call it Nazi Goering. That’s what a good education will do to kids :o)
It’s been almost 2 years since we lost Tsar. He was our 4th GSD and my baby.
I’m just about ready for another dog in my life. The boys would love one too so that’s 3 against one.
Our first GSD was with us when my eldest was born. Doggy came to Ulster with us and him and the little boy had such a wonderful relationship. To this day I can’t figure out how the two of them worked the scam but one or ‘t’other would distract me when my son was in his high chair eating and I’d suddenly find the dog finishing off the kid’s meal, on the floor, amongst loads of baby giggles.
There are NO bad dogs. Only bad owners. And GSD’s will protect their human family from all and everything.
Way back when I was a kid (around 11/12) my Dad was on a huge child murder enquiry that took him away from home for weeks.
At the time Mum worked in the restaurant (where I went to work aged 13) next door to us and every Thursday – her late shift – my brothers and I would come home from school, get washed and changed and go to the restaurant for our tea.
I ALWAYS chose gammon, pineapple and chips. Something we very rarely had at home.
On the menu tonight, plus the egg, plus petits pois, because I can…….
P.S. My traveller-in- crime girl is a pina colada fan. Whereas I prefer a Bloody Mary. Sweet is she. Sour am I :o)
We have an “antique” shop in town called Great Expectations and I visited it for the first time in about 4 years this morning.
Jeebuth. What a mess. Replace Antique with JUNK.
But I did find the book above. An old accounts book with beautiful marbling, some pages missing but mostly empty.
I rarely go out and about anymore. It’s so hard to socialise and be what my parents taught me to be. Polite and friendly and interested. Though I can say the words and smile the smile whilst inside is silent and still and a hundred thousand miles away.
It’s quite sad to realise that the beauty of an old work book, the binding, the feel of the paper, the real ink page numbers written by someone long ago gave me more pleasure than any person did.
My family know me. They understand but get extremely frustrated at times like this. When “I” disappear and they are left with an automaton.
My thanks to three Wonder Walls :o)
P.S. I still have nightmares about double entry bookkeeping as taught to me when I was 21 and working in a hotel in Amesbury.
This is a smell that was part of my life for a few years.
I was once told as a child that every country has it’s own smell. Well – UAE smells of oud.
Everywhere you go, they burn this incense. I bought loads home with me, along with charcoal blocks. My traveller-in-crime and I even got lost and abandoned in the souk in Old Dubai searching for the best oud. Absolute True Truth.
Recently I came across the product above on ama z on. Nag Champa has been my go to incense for almost a quarter of a century so I knew it’d be good.
WOW. The house smells like the Middle East right now :o)
The Fourth Way addresses the question of humanity’s place in the Universe and the possibilities of inner development. It emphasizes that people ordinarily live in a state referred to as a semi-hypnotic “waking sleep,” while higher levels of consciousness, virtue, unity of will are possible.
Someone is now preaching togetherness. The same someone who has had me banned for 3 years from their channel. Mmmmn.
OK.
When I think of the Fourth Way – these three come to mind (after Abba of course)
It’s when a number of completely different people come together and make something bigger than the individuals could ever do alone.
Agnetha had a voice. Frida had a voice. Bjorn and Benny had the music. Together they made something unique and ever-lasting.
Clarkson, Hammond, May – on paper these three are a disaster waiting to happen. Something no one in their right mind would ever even contemplate….
Another ever-lasting, unbelievably stupid, totally bad idea that is still alive and well and much loved by many :o)
The hole in the roof has had babies. They are now Holes – plural. And we’ve run out of buckets.
C’est la vie. Que sera, sera.
I saw Annie and Dave live in a tiny backstreet club in Berlin. They were at the height of their fame but chose that over the Olympic Stadium which was right beside our RMP Unit and had hosted the likes of U2, Michael Jackson, Bowie etc.
Eldest and I reminiscing about his childhood…..via music.
I really miss our old huge-mungous stereo system. Record player on top. Radio beneath. Cassette player. Equaliser……6 CDs stack CD player. We can pinpoint the year by the music.
Him : That bloody woman called Eddi and a song about Angels. NOT Robbie Williams. You played her all the time. And Annie something. And that bloody Canadian woman too.
:o) I’ve done my job well.
Two things (for me, personally) can bring back a motion/emotion-filled, technicolour moment in time. A Song. A Smell.
This is the follow up to Cold Calling which I finished about 2 weeks ago. Third time listening.
Who is stalking Seffi Callard, the world’s most fashionable celebrity medium, now a paranoid recluse at her father’s home in the Costwolds? Her old mentor, Marcus Bacton, editor of an ailing journal of the paranormal, sends his assistant, Grayle Underhill to find out – unaware that he’s thrusting them both into a nightmare… and the attentions of a vicious career-criminal for whom getting rich is less important than never getting dead.
I’m two weeks into listening to this at night. Yup. It takes me forever because I’m so knackered at the end of the day. And next night have to go back at least 10 chapters.
Mine own humble review of Mean Spirit :
The team from Cold Calling (minus Glaswegian Gobby Nursing Sister Andy Anderson – middle aged woman) is back together.
Grayle Underhill, the New York journalist, has decided to stay in St. Mary’s. Close to Marcus Bacton whose magazine The Phenomenologist is sinking fast and Grayle is helping to revive it as The Voice.
The gorgeous and cool Persephone Callard, of a black, late mother and a living upper-class white Sirship father, is a famous medium who has known Marcus since she was a child, attending the school where he once taught.
Cindy Mars-Lewis, South Wales Shaman and Cross-Dresser with his totem bird/puppet Kelvin Kite, is now on TV twice a week hosting The National Lottery.
The late, but revived by Sister Anderson policeman, Bobby Maiden is in line for promotion to Detective Chief Constable. Bobby had a very negative NDE (me too) and is still very wary of anything beyond the 3D.
Bring all these together with a famous TV hypnotist, a bloke who makes the Kray Brothers look like Nuns, an extremely bent high-ranking policeman forced (!) into retirement by Bobby and a huge “haunted house” once owned by a seriously deranged Victorian Spiritualist and things go somewhat awry.
Cindy is slammed by the public for taking the piss out of lottery winners who buy Barrett homes and BMW’s and “suddenly” all die. Marcus has a heart-attack. Grayle takes on a pseudonym after thinking that she’s killed a man and Seffi (Persephone) is haunted by a stinking, scarred, dead gangster who was once the best friend of reformed and now TV famous London Gangster.
I’m NOT a fan of Seffi. For me, she stands out as a cold and calculating madam who uses Marcus, Cindy, Grayle and Bobby without conscience or regret. All of whom then find themselves facing death by trying to help her.
Even the ending, and what happens to Seffi does not warm her one little bit.
We have no video for this post. All I can come up with is the one below.
Link?
Marcus Bacton is a short-tempered, foul-mouthed, but strangely loveable character who calls EVERYONE – apart from Persephone – by their last name.
Underhill. Maiden. Lewis. Anderson. Everyone else is just BASTARD :o)
We watched this this morning and I learned something new!
Katina eats an Ulster Fry….a big one. Yeah. Whooopppeee. It makes her famous.
Way back in the day when eldest was 18 months old and we lived in Ulster and Himself was in charge of the G.O.C’s protection team, working a 20 hour day……..me and the little ‘un used to go exploring.
OMG. Nobody told me at the time that taking the train from Lisburn to Belfast for a jolly day out was #banned by a “wife of.”
Me and my baby son did it regularly.
He’s just had a truly explosive moment about my life without him in Ulster.YOU DID WHAT?
Baby and I loved it. But in those days an Ulster Fry was sausage, bacon, eggs, beans in a separate bowl (NEVER on the plate) and soda bread.
The NI peeps have strange customs. NEVER had a waste bin in the house. Kitchen bin always outside the back door. Didn’t display knick-knacks in house. Never tainted a meal with baked bean juice. Loved the colour ORANGE (check that out???)
I loved Belfast. The people were great. The city is awesome………….oops :o)
Note to Self : Buy some Bicarb of soda to make soda bread next week.
