Greetings

Dear Readers,

Let us seek peace on this earth and give goodwill to one and all.

Wishing you and yours a Happy Christmas.

Paul x

Agents Again

I’ve just sent the opening of my novel to a dozen literary agents in London. So my fingers are firmly crossed. It’s almost a year now, since I first submitted to agents. The novel has changed enormously in that time. I’ve rethought the identities of both the main protagonists (a postman hero and a waitress heroine) and the antagonist (a smooth-talking villain). I’ve introduced several minor characters. Key aspects of the journey that the protagonists take have been altered too. And I’ve changed the narrative from the past to the present tense. In effect, the novel has been transformed over the last year. This was needed. The novel I had a year ago was a working draft. Not the more polished product I have now. A year ago it had plenty of flaws, which at that time, I couldn’t see. But I’ve learned so much about novel writing and editing since then. All of it gained the hard way - by making mistakes and later on having to rectify them.

Novel writing is indeed a craft. It requires time, determination and experience to develop as a writer of fiction. I’ve been working hard at improving my novel for a year, mostly on my own. I got feedback from a novelist who read and commented on the manuscript last spring, and from two agents who were generous enough to write and tell me what they liked about my novel and what they thought didn’t work. The others just rejected it: some by a standard rejection letter; the rest by no response at all. Many agents’ websites now say, if you haven’t had a response within two months then you should assume I’m not interested. So among the many qualities a writer has to develop is a tough skin.

Zoe Doesn't Like Gluten-free

A new relationship is fraught with tensions. Both parties are sussing the other out and monitoring their reactions. Things can improve or deteriorate. And over recent weeks Zoe and I have been growing apart. I discovered a year ago that I’m gluten-intolerant. This is one of the most common allergies in the UK and affects several million people. It’s easy to manage. All supermarkets offer a range of gluten-free foods. But it is a problem to Zoe. No account is taken of any food allergies. Zoe scores foods primarily on the basis of how processed they are. However, many gluten-free foods are processed to remove or avoid gluten. Thus they fall foul of Zoe’s scoring system and are given unreasonably low scores. For example, I usually eat cornflakes for breakfast (a gluten-free cereal). To a half-bowl of these, I add nuts, seeds, blueberries, natural yoghourt and a sliced banana. Cornflakes are scored zero on the Zoe system. And despite the other healthy ingredients I include, my whole meal is downgraded because of it. Zoe wants you to score 75 or over on their system every day. The best I’ve ever managed is 62.

Zoe’s overall intention seems to be to turn pizza guzzlers into card-carrying vegans. It’s a laudable objective. In this mission, Zoe sends you rafts of messages every day, filled with dietary information in bite-sized chunks. It’s a system of programmed learning for people with low attention spans and little or no knowledge. The messages are broken up in one or two sentences, with a button to press to get the next chunk. The button is invariably labelled ‘Wow. Tell Me More’. To be frank, I find these so irritating that I’ve largely given up reading them. This messaging is another example of Zoe’s inflexibility.

Much is made in the advertising that Zoe will offer you specific dietary advice, tailored to your needs. As a general guide the Zoe system is fine. But the specifics of it are far too inflexible to be helpful. The Zoe scoring system assumes that one size will fit all. Taking no account of allergies is a serious flaw. Low scores are given to foods to encourage someone to seek higher-scoring alternatives. But I am unable to substitute gluten-free foods for gluten-full ones. Surely it is not beyond the wit of whoever designed the Zoe scoring system to accommodate one of the most common food allergies in the world. It’s looking very much like Zoe and I will soon be parting ways.

Samhain and the Source of Halloween

The autumn equinox (the point of equal day and night) has just passed. Today we enter the dark half of the year. Like all turning points, it has always been a time of looking back and looking forward. The sun is lower and the days are shorter and colder. Plants and animals begin to hibernate. The warm half of the year has faded and died. It’s a time when we feel closer to death and those that have departed. In ancient times, the festival of Samhain was celebrated at the equinox. Records suggest that it involved gatherings and feasting after the cattle had been brought down from their summer pasture. Thanks were given for all the food that had been harvested, which was needed to keep those people and their animals through the winter months. Fire was an important part of the festival, symbolizing both death and rebirth. The spirits of the dead were thought to return at this time. A place was set for them at the table and offerings were made. Celebrants were believed to have worn masks and other costumes.

Over a thousand years ago, Samhain became transposed into All Hallows Day (or All Saints Day) by early Christianity, which chose to piggyback onto pre-exisiting traditions rather than to confront them. But the pagan traditions of Samhain re-emerged in Halloween (the Eve of All Hallows Day), with its attention to fire, the spirits of the dead, feasting and costume. So when lighting a candle in a pumpkin, putting on a witch’s hat or decorating the house with skulls and skeletons, try to remember where all this came from. And try to put yourself in the animal-hide shoes of those ancient peoples who lived here thousands of years ago.

Zoe

There’s a new woman in my life. We began to meet online. Then she shared some videos with me. And I was hooked. But T need not worry. I’ve not joined a strange Russian dating site. Zoe is a nutrition and gut health improvement programme run by eminent scientists from Kings College, London, and Harvard Medical School. And I’ve just become one of their thousands of guinea pigs.

Oddly enough, you begin the progamme by eating muffins. But not any old muffins. The specially prepared ones they send you. After the first meal of muffins you monitor your blood sugar, via a sensor in your upper arm. After a second meal of muffins you monitor your blood fat, by doing a pinprick blood test. Then you send them a sample of your poo. To some, this might sound a bit off-putting. But it’s very easy to do. Your results arrive fairly quickly.

My blood sugar response was graded good (in comparison to all participants) and excellent (in comparison to people of a similar age and sex). So my body processes carbohydrates very effectively and I’m not at risk of diabetes anytime soon. My blood fat response was graded poor in relation to both sets of comparators. To some extent I already knew I had a problem in this area. I’ve been taking a statin for some years to lower cholesterol. But now I need to do more. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my microbiome was graded as excellent. The poo sample showed that my gut contained a preponderance of good bacteria and very little bad bacteria.

So what next? The Zoe app has inputted my results. When I log the food I’m eating into the online diary, it scores every item on the impact it will have on my blood sugar, blood fat and microbiome. It also puts each food item I’m eating into four categories. Eat rarely. Enjoy in moderation. Enjoy regularly. Enjoy freely. Zoe has an enormous database of foods, so you can look up different items to see how they have been scored. Then you can change ingredients or substitute healthier alternatives. This is helpful, as I’m trying more actively to control the level of fats in my diet.

Joining Zoe isn’t cheap (it costs several hundred pounds for one year). But it’s already proving to be a valuable investment.

Celebrating Ciaran Carson

Next week sees an international gathering at Queen’s University Belfast to honour and celebrate the work of the late Ciaran Carson. As befits such a multitalented man, there will be music and art as well as readings and discussion. And all events are free. I will be reading a few poems at 4pm on Wednesday13 September in the Canada Room, along with colleagues from the Writers’ Group that Ciaran led so successfully for over a decade. He was a man with a keen attention to every detail of language. And when editing a new piece, I still find myself thinking, what would Ciaran say about that?

I first met Ciaran about 15 years ago. I crept away from my day job at the University to attend the meetings of the Writers’ Group, which were held every Wednesday afternoon. I’d just begun to write poems that were stimulated by real-life stories. Ciaran was most encouraging. These weren’t ‘found poems’. The real-life story was the ground from which the poem emerged, a launch point. Ciaran christened them ‘discovered poems’ and told me I had ‘found my metier’.

My own small contribution to the commemoration is a new book of poems, ‘True’. It is dedicated to Ciaran and brings together the ‘discovered poems’ I wrote during his years of mentoring the Writers’ Group. The book will be published later this year by The Black Spring Press. You can read more about the book in the leaflet that the publisher has prepared (see below). I will be reading poems from ‘True’ on Wednesday 13 September. The event is hosted by Paul Maddern. I hope to see some of you there.

Relief and Climate Change

T has just had a review with the surgeon. It’s six weeks since her op, and she’s recovered well. He examined her thoroughly and asked a series of questions about her symptoms. She explained that her main concern was the strange catching sensations she felt internally. Don’t worry, he said. That’s just the internal stitches. They’re dissolvable. But it can take up to six months for that to happen. Oh dear, that’s a long time, said T. He smiled. But the stitches won’t interfere with normal life. You can start getting back to that from now on. T returned home with a smile on her face. The op had been a complete success.

We were relieved. We’d both been worrying. You’re in the dark about symptoms until you speak with an expert. Before the review, T had been taking things easy. And I’d been doing most of the domestic work. I had been able to take the odd day off, which I’d used for bike rides. But the weather was consistently bad: rainy, windy and cool. More like autumn than summer. So I went on longer rides, because often there was only one day a week that was remotely cycleable. Even so, I still managed to get soaked regularly. One day in particular stands out. I rode around part of Lough Neagh and it poured down. I opened my saddlebag to find that I’d not put my rain jacket in.

The Met Office has now told us that July 2023 was the wettest in NI since records began in 1836, with double the average rainfall. And this followed June 2023 being the driest and warmest in NI since records began. Strange to think that some people still don’t believe climate change is an important problem.

Getting Back on Her Feet

It’s now three weeks since T had her surgery and she’s recovering well. For the first week she stayed in bed most of the time. She was so sore and tired. Her surgery was laparoscopic, under general anaesthetic. So she has four holes in her abdomen, rather than one long cut. But surgery of any sort is a serious ordeal. During the second week, she began to sit out in the chair. She was still sore and tired, so couldn’t manage this for long periods. But she slowly graduated from watching videos to actually reading books. This third week she has been walking. Around the house at first, but then she’s graduated to short walks outside. Under supervision, of course.

I’ve been in charge of household work all of this time. In the past we shared this. To be honest, T did more of it than I did. And it’s been eye-opening to experience how demanding it is to do 100% of this work. Shopping, cooking and cleaning up takes a big chunk of the day. No sooner have you completed one meal than it’s almost time to start on the next. So I’m housekeeper and nurse. But I’m glad to say that T is a model patient.

Being a bit more mobile this week, T has been exploring what she can and can’t do. I’ve been grateful for her help with preparing the meals a couple of times. She’s able to cut up vegetables and make a salad. But she can’t lift anything heavy, like a kettle or a cooking pot. She can’t bend down. But she can drive her car a short way. She went to the local petrol station and back, and managed it fine, with a pillow between her body and the seat belt. The nurse at our GP’s reckons it will take her six weeks to get back on her feet again. At her current rate of progress, she might get there a little sooner. And I might end up acting as a monitor to prevent her from taking on too much.

Surgery and Lightning Strikes

The night before T went into hospital for surgery, we had thunderstorms. We watched the heavy dark cloud boil and counted the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. The storm was getting nearer and nearer. Then there was a lightning strike and a huge rumble of thunder overhead. The lights went out and all our appliances went dead. We looked at each other. Was this some sort of omen? Then the power came back on. We checked the house. Everything seemed to be working, apart from the telephone. Slowly, the storm moved on and we went to bed with torches at the bedside. The next day, I took her into hospital.

T was having a planned abdominal operation. While she was waiting to be taken into theatre, we sent each other text messages. Then her messages suddenly stopped. And I had to wait. I paced around the house and tried to do the normal routine. But I was all on my own. It wasn’t reassuring. It only emphasised who was no longer with me.

Before, it had been me getting the operations. I was afraid, of course. Your pulse is sky high when you get onto the operating table. Everyone else is covered up in gowns and masks. They’re waiting to stick knives into you. Then the anaesthetist inserts something at your wrist and you’re out until you come round in the recovery room.

T had gone through the terrible ordeal of waiting three times for me. And all three operations were uncertain of the outcome. I marveled at her mental strength and stoicism. The hours ticked by. After four had elapsed I was almost pulling my hair out. Then a text message. She was alive and well. The operation had been a success. She’d spend two nights in hospital and then she could come home.

Eventually, the BT engineer came. The lightning had blown two master sockets inside the house, the cable at the gable end of the house and at the telegraph pole in the road. He spent an hour replacing the sockets and fixing the cable. With the landline working, I tried our three handsets. None worked. The lightning had blown those as well. But it hadn’t struck either of us. We’d both come through the ordeal. And now we could give thanks.

Long Covid - The TV Guide

Despite testing negative for the virus, I continued to feel unwell. When trying to do things, I was overcome with breathlessness and exhaustion. It was extremely limiting and made me very depressed. For five awful weeks I feared I had Long Covid. Then my breathing began to improve. I found I could do easy walks without needing to use my inhaler. I was even able to try harder walks and also easy cycle rides. I’m not fully back to normal, but I am well on the way. I don’t really know what led to my improvement. But I’m very grateful. Whilst in the thrall of the virus, I spent a lot of time watching TV drama. So here are my highlights.

My favourite TV channel is Talking Pictures TV. It’s on Freeview and Freesat and shows predominantly old films: British, European and American. I was tipped off about it by John Cooper Clarke, the Bard of Salford. Not personally, it was via an interview. He confessed that he hardly watched any other channel since he’d found TPTV. I feel similarly about it. My favourite programme on TPTV is Maigret. Every Tuesday at 21.05 they show a film of one of the novels, made for French TV in the 1990’s. The production values are good, the realization is accurate, the atmosphere is authentic and the lead actor is perfect. His name is Bruno Cremer and I think he’s the best Maigret I’ve seen. Rupert Davies in the 1960’s was quite good, but the production values were poor. Michael Gambon was fairly good too. Then came Rowan Atkinson. He was terrible: hollow, wooden and colourless. Georges Simenon describes the character as imposing and powerfully built. And Cremer fits the bill.

Other than that, I spent plenty of time on DVD’s. My favourite was ‘Pennies From Heaven’, by Dennis Potter, first broadcast in spring 1978 on the BBC (I missed it because I was working in Italy). I was astonished by how fresh, powerful and ambitious the six plays are. Using popular song and dance to explore and ironically comment on the motivations of the characters works so wonderfully well. The use of locations that I know from my childhood in Gloucester and the Forest of Dean is very evocative too. I think this is Dennis Potter's best work. The leads are all terrific: Bob Hoskins, Gemma Craven and Cheryl Campbell. The storyline involves deception, blackmail, rape, murder and prostitution, set amid the poverty of 1930’s Britain. All this darkness presents as a sub-text to the escapism of the popular songs of the time.This tension fuels the conflict (between fantasy and reality, desire and repression, delusion and inarticulacy) that drives the main characters and the narrative. ‘Pennies From Heaven’ gained audiences of 12 million when it was first shown on the BBC. Seeing it for the first time 45 years later, underlines just how safe, predictable and dull TV drama has become on the mainstream channels these days.

Covid Recovery in the UK - You Are On Your Own

It’s been six weeks since I caught the virus, and I’m still not right. I’ve improved from where I was three weeks ago. Now I can do an easy walk for 10 minutes or so before becoming breathless and worn out. But for someone who would normally cycle 100 miles a week, that doesn’t feel like a great step forward. So I’ve joined the many thousands who are having problems recovering from Covid-19. What is also clear is that the medical profession doesn’t really know what to do with us. I’ve seen my GP several times and had a series of tests, but these haven’t identified any specific problems. ‘I expect your symptoms will improve in the weeks and months ahead,’ he suggested. But I wasn’t content with ‘wait and see’, so my GP is now trialling different treatments.

I’ve just completed a one week course of high-dose steroids, which has sought to reduce the levels of inflammation in my lungs. I need to take steroids like this because I only have one kidney. The trouble is that high-dose steroids have very unpleasant side-effects: they made me mentally hyper, anxious and insomniac. After a week of this I was burnt out, and my lungs were only a little improved. The next option is to trial an asthma medication. This was my suggestion, after doing internet research.

The NHS has a website: Your Covid Recovery. It’s targeted at people who take longer than 4 weeks to recover. But it is largely devoid of meaningful information, and spends a lot of time stating the obvious. For example: if you get tired and breathless doing something, then stop. It does tell you that if your symptoms persist for three months then you are considered to have Long-Covid. And there must be plenty in this unfortunate situation. The most recent government statistics reveal that there are now half a million more people on long-term sick than before the pandemic.

My own research found that the problem seems to be related to age and pre-existing conditions. Studies show that half of those aged over 50 take longer than 4 weeks to recover from Covid-19. And for those with pre-existing lung conditions, such as myself, Covid-19 did make their symptoms significantly worse. Three years into the pandemic, these facts should not be surprising to the medical profession. After all, Covid-19 is a type of viral pneumonia. So why does the NHS appear to have no clinical guidance on treating the many thousands of people in the UK who have this very common chronic illness? Is the NHS so consumed with firefighting acute problems that it has no capacity to do this?

Under Quarantine

I finally caught Covid-19, after three years of keeping myself clear. It began with a headache, a dry cough and a runny nose. But within 12 hours I was lying in bed shivering. T piled blankets on top of the duvet. But still I shivered and shook. My temperature was sky high and my head was pounding like mad. ‘I’ve never seen you so ill,’ she said. I lay there drifting in and out of consciousness. It was as if I was in the grip of a tropical disease (which I suppose I was). The test confirmed I had the bug. ‘You look like death warmed up,’ said T, with cheery bluntness. I tried to smile. It was more of a grimace.

Three terrible days ensued. But by the third, my temperature was reducing. I managed to sit up in bed long enough to eat a little food. The next day, the sore throat began. It quickly went to razor blades every time I tried to swallow. The virus also went into my larynx and I lost my voice. It was miserable. However, the bug still had some tricks up its sleeve. My chest became extremely sore and I began to cough up yellow mucus.

By the start of the second week, my temperature had returned to normal. But I still had a bad chest and my sinuses were all bunged up. I was quarantined in the bedroom. T nursed me, always wearing a mask, and brought me food on a tray. I took another test. I was still positive. The bad chest and sinus symptoms continued for the rest of the week. I got very depressed. The GP had classified me as clinically extremely vulnerable. Was I never going to get over this disease?

At the end of the second week my body went into a horrible prolonged spasm. I was burning up, my head was thumping, my chest and throat were aching, I couldn’t stop coughing, my eyes and nose were streaming. I was shivering and extremely thirsty. I drank pint after pint of water, but that didn’t seem to have any effect. I collapsed into bed.

I woke to an exhausted calm, feeling completely burnt out. T had been on to Dr Google. She told me that the spasm was probably caused by my own immune system going into overdrive. Over-stimulated by a strange animal virus, my own defences were attacking me, putting my organs under threat. Apparently this had been the mechanism behind the deaths of many people - even the young, healthy and fit.

I took another test. Surprisingly, it was negative. But I still felt awful. I was coughing up yellow gunge and my sinuses were bunged up. T was relieved. She could take off her mask and relax the quarantine. Allowed to walk around the house, I found I was as weak as water. I had to rest after even the mildest activity, mental or physical. I watched plenty of TV and DVDs. And T continued to nurse and feed me. Over the week, my sinuses cleared but my chest was still a problem.

I was in the shadow of the virus. But I had survived. Thanks be to God, and T. Although at times it’d felt like a close run thing. No-one knows how badly Covid is going to affect them until they get it. I’d received all of the vaccinations. The last one had been six months previously. So I suppose its protection had pretty much run out. I’m now three weeks in and still feeling groggy with a sore chest. I know it’s going to take me some time to properly recover. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that the virus hasn’t done me any lasting damage.

Good Friday

This day has many anniversaries. The Christian one concerns an event that took place two millennia ago. In Northern Ireland it’s also known for a Peace Agreement signed in 1998. And on this day twelve years ago, I was diagnosed with stage three cancer. I remember the occasion vividly. At the time I thought my life was at an end. In truth, it was. The life I’d known up to that point in time had ended. I was embarking on a new phase of my life, as a cancer patient. And more recently (touch wood) as a cancer survivor.

Cancer treatment has taken away bits of my body and caused a range of physical frailties that I always have to contend with. It has put me and my nearest and dearest under enormous stress (and still does). But it has also given me resources. Or more accurately, made me develop them. To survive you have to be determined. To struggle against the odds. To struggle against a system that sees you as just another patient. To struggle against yourself. In short, you have to be someone who will ask the awkward questions, who won’t give up when encountering an obstacle, who will keep on keeping on. There is no one word for this survivorship. Resilience, fortitude, endurance are in the right area. It’s more a package of qualities that grow when you are under duress for an extended period of time. Not weeks, nor months, but years.

All of this is undoubtedly crucial for survival. Yet something more is required. You have to be lucky too. All the will in the world cannot alone save you. The stars have to be aligned as well. So today, I remember the friends and family who had the determination, but who didn’t have the luck. My brother Rob. Jean Morgan. Elizabeth Sloss. Charlie Adams. The list goes on and on. So many have met an untimely death at the hands of the Big C. May you rest in peace.

 

The Big Rewrite

While I was laid up with sinusitis, I distracted myself by rereading the crime novel manuscript I’d submitted to agents in early December. ‘Sounds like you were a bit desperate’, do I hear you say? To tell the truth, I was. You can’t lie in bed with sinusitis. That increases the pressure inside your head. You have to sit up. So I wrapped myself in a heated blanket and plonked myself down at my writing desk. As I reread the manuscript, it dawned on me that it was flawed. As I read on, I realized that it wasn’t just a bit of tinkering that was needed but a significant rewrite. To go with my bunged-up head, I had a sinking heart. No wonder half of the dozen agents I’d sent it to had rejected it. I’d submitted the manuscript too soon.

With a sigh, I went through the manuscript again. I had read it several times before I'd submitted it. But this time I was trying to look at it with an agent's eye. I focused on the bits that didn’t quite work or that didn’t really belong. Red pencil in hand, I was pretty ruthless. And when I stopped, I found that I’d cut 9000 words. At the same time, I was reshaping the story. I rewrote the backstories of the two main protagonists. This impacted on their motivations and how they related to each other and responded to the challenges they encountered. I also built up a minor character into a major one. When I looked back, I found I’d added 7000 words.

My rewritten manuscript still has the same start and ending. It keeps most of the scenes it had before. It’s just that the story is now flowing and working better. The two months of editing had produced a manuscript that was much the same length. But the shape and emphasis had changed, especially in the personal journeys that the two main protagonists take. And that had improved the whole significantly.

This daily engagement with the manuscript, the work of editing and rewriting, gave me a focus and a purpose at a very difficult time. It got me through a debilitating and depressing illness. The improvement of my manuscript was a bonus. But an important one. I also had the presence of mind to withdraw my submission from the half dozen agents that hadn’t rejected it. I shall shortly begin submitting the revised version.

Sinusitis Remedies

This New Year I got a new illness (for me) and one I don’t ever want to have again. I went down with a dose of the flu over Christmas and that left me with sinusitis. For the past two months I’ve been plagued by it. Essentially, the sinuses are a human design flaw. These narrow lined passages that run through the bones below, between and above your eyes are easily infected by viruses, leading to the infamous, bunged-up, head cold. But sometimes the inflammation persists when the cold has gone. Hence, sinusitis: characterized by persistent headaches, hearing and balance problems. So I worked my way through the over-the-counter remedies. I think I sniffed almost every type of decongestant up my hooter. But to no avail. In desperation, I turned to my GP.

Reassuringly, he told me that acute sinusitis could last for two months. And the problem wouldn’t be regarded as chronic until I’d had it for three months. He prescribed me a steroid nasal spray. That helped a bit, but it didn’t solve the problem. So I turned to natural remedies. The best I found were Olbas Oil and steam inhalation. These did give me some temporary relief. But the symptoms always returned. So I rang the group practice again. A different GP prescribed a new steroid spray and recommended I do nasal douching. ‘What’s that?’ I hear you say. Well, you mix one teaspoon of salt with one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and add one pint of boiled water. When the mix cools you squirt it up your nose with a syringe whilst sniffing hard.

I don’t know whether this was what did the trick, but over the past couple of weeks the problem has been easing and I’m beginning to return to some sort of normality. One thing is for sure, my poor old nozzy certainly needs a good rest.

 

Another Year Older and Deeper in Debt

So goes the famous song, ’Sixteen Tons’. It was written in 1946 about the hard life in a Kentucky coal-mine. I finished working at the coal face some years back. And now I’m just another retired ‘old git’ in their declining years. But, on my birthday, I give thanks that I am still here. Able to sit in the sunshine and talk about life insurance, purchase a stair lift or plan my own funeral. The primary considerations of pensioners in the UK, according to advertisers on afternoon TV.

My financial debts are thankfully few. I’ve lived long enough to pay off my mortgage. And I don’t have expensive habits or a lavish lifestyle. Unless you include the money I spend on bicycles. Which I suppose I really ought to. But hell, who’s counting?

My debts are all in other directions. To the medical staff of the NHS who discovered my series of cancers and removed them. To my friends and family for the love and support they continue to give me. But most of all to my dearest T, who has been a fount of generous love and unstinting care, whatever the situation. And many situations there have been. It’s now almost seven years since I was told by an eminent surgeon at the Mater Hospital that I should not expect to live beyond a year. Experts can indeed be wrong sometimes. But I know I wouldn’t have got to this birthday without her.

The Fox

We have a fox. There has always been a fox trail along the edge of our garden. And from time to time we would see a fox run across the lawn and disappear through the top hedge. We co-existed peacefully, until recently. One night the fox came into the back yard and raided the cat food that is kept in the greenhouse. Both of our semi-feral cats sleep in the back yard. We worried that they might become a convenient meal for a hungry fox. They are wily hunters. So how could we deter the fox?  

The first thing we tried was voices. Humans are the main predator of foxes, after all. So we hung a small transistor radio in the greenhouse. It was tuned to Radio 4, which becomes the World Service overnight. The internet was confident that talk radio would put the fox off.

But the next night, the fox raided the greenhouse again. There was no cat food stored there anymore, and just a few scraps in the cat bowls. The fox managed to turn them over. And our two cats were in hiding. What should we do now? Would we have been better turning to some easy listening station? Were foxes attuned to current affairs and more deterred by the dulcet tones of Barry Manilow? Indeed, might the lack of easy pickings make the fox keener for a meal of cat?

We consulted the internet again. The next night we put the yard light on at dusk and left it on all night. We also continued with the transistor on Radio 4. And lo and behold the fox did not come and raid. The combination of the night light and the shipping forecast was too much for it. A good friend told me that foxes are opportunistic hunters. They are always on the lookout for an easy meal. So if you make it hard for them, they will go and try somewhere else.

Happy New Year

The old year has been rung out and the new one rung in. It’s time to wish all friends and family a Happy New Year. And how this is done does matter, as Scottish friends will confirm. The tradition is to remain at home for the bells, and then to go and visit all your family and friends to wish them a Happy New Year. That is why Scotland has a two day holiday at the beginning of January. To wish someone a Happy New Year whilst we are still in the old year is liable to bring bad luck.

My luck ran out just before Christmas. After keeping my distance for much of the autumn, I visited all our neighbours to give them cards and small gifts in the run up to Christmas. And, in a symbolic reversal of ‘A Christmas Carol’, I went down with the ‘flu on Christmas Eve. It’s the first dose I’ve had for over two years and I’m afraid to say that it’s still with me. So my festive season has been spent with Lem-Sips, eiderdowns and cough medicine. But T has been looking after me well. So I’ve managed to have the odd mince pie and scrap of turkey from time to time. Bah humbug.

I very much hope that 2023 brings you what you are wishing for.

Paul x