…..another year older, a new one just begun…
Anyway, I hope you all had a pleasant and peaceful holiday. For me, it’s back to work – well, I never really stopped, thats what it’s like, working from home – and I’m getting on with some of the backlog of Elfin Diary work, Astrological Association Diary work, astrological reports. So, naturally, I’m sat here faffing with my blog.
One of the side-effects of my medication is intermittent insommnia – some nights I’m snoring for Britain all night long, other nights I can’t sleep for hours. Those nights, I tend to sit downstairs watching the news channels. A pretty depressing occupation these last few nights.
We get the CNN channel, and the contrast between the American and British/European reporting of the disaster has been instructive. Here, the reports concentrate on what it means for the people directly affected, both locals and tourists; there have been interviews and stories focussing on individuals, but overwhelmingly the broadcasters have tried to show us the broad picture of the tragedy. And, conspicuously, politicians have been blessedly absent from the screens.
But over on CNN the focus is reversed. Story after story, interview after interview, with US survivors – interrupted by the occasional long-shot of devastation and interspersed with shots of US relief planes taking off (often the same shots repeated over and and over). And politicians by the dozen – Colin Powell formally signing the book of condolence at the Thai embassy, surrounded by reporters and cameras and TV lights; other politicians giving news conferences announcing how much US aid is being given; hourly announcements about how Jeb Bush and Colin Powell will be flying to Thailand to assess the situation (no mention of how much they and their entourage will be wasting on a flight that could be bringing in relief supplies); some fat bastard saying how the US should be putting much more money into relief aid in the region to stop Al-Quaeda turning all those orphans and displaced people into anti-American terrorists.
Oh, and I caught the CEO of the world’s biggest pharmacutical company, Pfizer, announcing that his company will be donating $10 million to the relief fund. What a nice gesture. Of course, the most pressing need in that region, for weeks to come, will be antibiotics and medicines; I wonder – who do you suppose will be selling them?

Happy blooming New Year to you all.

Yes, OK, I’ve not been posting for a while. Been busy – we’re making a start on the 2006 Elfin Diary, would you believe? And I have to get some astrological reports out. And get the January issue of Transit together. Aaarghh!
But I took yesterday off for Yule. We had a gathering and feast at Carol’s house; Brian cooked a goose, some potatoes and a veggie chestnut roast for it. He’s getting to be a really good cook! Other people had provided various ingredients – there was some magnificent puddings. But Carol had done the bulk of the preperation.
There were 16 of us squashed around her table, which was beautifully spread and groaning under the weight of all that nosh – besides the goose, there was venison, partridge, duck and chicken. The chicken was one of Carol’s cockerels, the other meats were all wild and from around here – only our goose was shop-bought (there are plenty of wild geese around here in the winter, but they are protected species). Most of the vegetables were Carol’s homegrown.
After the meal, we crammed into her living room. One of the guests, Adam, is a piper and had bought along a small set of pipes; we spent the evening singing chanting, drumming, listening to Adam play us many many tunes.
The highlight of the evening was a splendid game of Five Bottles Tops, between Carol and Ralph. Ralph opened with a simple Muszurka Forward, Carol set the game’s tone by countering with a Plough; at the height of the game, he called the Duke of Dunfirmline Rules which Carol had to block fast with a Hastings Defence. But she soon rallied, eventually pulling off a barnstorming Mornington Crescent move and following up with a thoroughgoing Nurdling. At which he was forced to concede Cheshire Cake!
And we talked and laughed and heard tales and spread gossip. And the Yule log burned bright.
It was a very good Yule.

Saw the doctor yesterday, for my now-regular monthly checkup. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that in the last two months I have acquired diagnoses for angina, high blood pressure and an underactive thyroid.
All that’s on top of my existing arthritis. Whoo hoo…. I now don’t feel so guilty about not doing the gardening.
Yesterday, he checked me over, told me I was doing pretty well and gave me a prescription for a whole new lot of pills, as well as increasing the strength of my thryrodoxine. I now have to take a total of four – or is it five? – different medications a day. That’s not counting my vitamin supplements.
Apparently the new lot of pills is because the pills for my angina interfere with the pills for my thyroid and vice-versa; this new pill is to balance things out.
So I took the new increased dose of thyroidoxine last night, as advised – I told him how cold I got at night in bed, no matter how many blankets I piled on, so he suggested taking it in the evening instead of the morning.
I didn’t get to sleep until around 4am. I woke up around 8am, feeling not too bad, just a bit dry-mouthed and headachy. I’m still feeling not too bad and it’s what? getting on for 4pm? I am waiting to for the need to sleep to kick in – better get downstairs and arrange myself on the sofa…..

… Gavin’s cremation was today. Really, one of us here, one of his neighbours, should have been there. But, nobody seemed too enthusiastic. Well, Carol was working, Graham is also working; don’t know about the others yet. We did think of going. But it is miles away, at Ayr, and we can’t really afford the fuel; also, neither of us really have clothes that we could wear at a formal funeral. We’re a pair of scruffs who rarely manage the price of new clothes and prefer to slop around in casuals anyway. I only have two pairs of footwar, for instance – a pair of worn-down tan-coloured sandels and a pair of hefty walking boots, in dark green. Neither really go well with the rather faded black dress that I have worn to funerals for donkeys years (and which is probably a size too small for me now). Neither of us even have a decent-looking top coat to wear. And really, we don’t know the family well enough to be sure we won’t be causing offense by looking all scruffy.
But I did have the chance to tell his sister what I thought a good man Gavin had been, when she came round yesterday to do somethings in his flat. Hopefully, that helped a little. And I wasn’t trying to be nice to them – I really do think he was a good, gentle man.

Rest in peace, Gavin.

Our neighbour Gavin died on Friday. He had been ill for several months, with what was eventually diagnosed as cancer of the osoephegus. He’d been away in hospital for about two months, and died so suddenly and unexpectedly that his family were unable to get to his bedside in time.
We didn’t know him well – nobody here did, I suppose. he was oner of those people who, as they say “kept himself to himself”. He was shy, uneasy in company, not talkative. But he was friendly, nodding to us, giving us lifts if he was passing in his Forestry Commission van. Occasionally he would stop to talk quite lengthily with Brian, about motors and football and other safe topics.

He was a member of our lottery syndicate here, the one I’m in charge of. When he went into hospital, we kept his share going. Last night, our ticket came up a winner. No – not a jackpot – just a tenner. But when I checked the winning line, I discovered they were Gavin’s numbers. I’ve had a talk with the others and we’ve decided that a good way to use the money would be to plant a tree here in Gavin’s memory. Carol is going to check with his family, to find out if he had any favourites in trees – he was a forestry worker, after all – but if not, then we’ll buy a damson.

He was, I think, a good man in his quiet way. He certainly had no harm in him. A tree for him would be nice

I was up at dawn this morning – before dawn, in fact. We had a power cut here last night; it came back on just after four this morning. I’d forgotten to turn off our printers and they made a heck of a racket powering up. So I got up to turn them off, along with all the lights; knowing that I wouldn’t be able to get any more sleep (B snored through it all – an earthquake wouldn’t wake him sometimes) I stayed up.
Turning on the ‘puter, I found over a hundred posts from an astrology email list I belong to. Most of the list are American – they were nearly all expressing their shock and despair that Bush had got re-elected (the exception was the list’s lone Repuplican, bravely batting for her side). Most of the list’s non-USians were asking how such a thing could happen.

For the average American who chose Fascism over freedom, you have, with your vote, destroyed a great nation and placed the world at risk.

was pretty representative of the tone of these posts.
For several of the Americans, it was clear who had won the election for Bush. This post pretty much sums it up:

the exit polls overwhelmingly list republican voters deciding their choice on …would you believe it?… moral values!!!
GWB opposes gay marriage and abortion. What these two issues have to do with the pressing, pragmatic issues of government I will never know, nor understand. Apparently, the electorate sees them as vitally important to the security of the United States in the world and to the stability of the US economy.
GWB is easily the most immoral, unscrupulous, overtly corrupt president in living history. The spin his people employ is openly and aggressively deceptive. He has shown unwavering contempt for international law and been unyielding and unrepentant in his contempt for civil liberties and social reform.
His only true loyalty lies with big money and big business. Nevertheless he wins on moral values.
The parallel to a certain fan of Wagner is not lost on the rest of the world either.

Other posters quoted the number of private Christian schools that had been set up in America; Virginia apparently now has no publicly-funded schools at all and nearly all of the schools there are Christian-run, teaching (like all US Christian schools) creationism, the Bible and the American Way. These schools are turning out entire generations of intellectual midgets and emotionally-stunted, small-minded bigots who see someone like Bush as their guiding light in an endless night of sin and darkness.
I heard similar views expressed on the news programmes – it was the evangelical vote that got him him, and they were voting purely on gay marriage and abortion and to heck with the rest of the world and ‘Godless’ Americans. Turning to one of my favourite US bloggers The Slacktavist, I found worrying confirmation.
It’s beginning to look like this will be a nasty few years for the world.

So, for some relief, I went outside and watched Venus and Jupiter rising in the Eastern sky; two jewel-like, sparkling dots of light, one above the other; and a half-moon in the South. And the black velvet sky turning to deepest blue, and the geese calling from the loch, and Carole’s cat gliding ghostlike along the fence….
My heart soared and I looked and listened to all this beauty; I traced the constellations and figured the astrological aspects and patterns – Venus and Jupiter both conjunct my South Node right now – what did that portend -? As I loked and thought and figured, I felt something on my bare foot, looked down and found a large earthworm crawling over my toes.
I laughed. What did that earthworm portend? God, Goddess, or Whatever, only knows! As one of my other favourite bloggers says:

God decided, and what He willed, He did.

Just had an email from Roy Gillett of the Astrological association, about Transit:

At Saturday’s meeting we will be discuss ways of making it available to more and more members.

I’m not at all sure I like the sound of that. Though I can’t say exactly why. There have been rumblings amongst the ancient bearded ones that all this new-fangled internet stuff will not do at all, and that the AA could manage perfectly well without it.
Heck, it might actually be good news – some time ago, I put in a suggestion that I print and send out the hard-copy Transit myself, as a proper stapled A5-sized magazine (which we’re set up to do here). If it happens, it will of course be more work for me, but I can expect quite a decent lump of cash every couple of months.
Hmmm, where’s my ephemeris?