cold cometh

gimme. 

gimme paracetamol 

500mg 

the good stuff.

with the codeine depth charge.

do opiates help colds?

do i care? 

can't hurt.

actifed. sudafed. anything with a -fed.

tablets or spoonfuls?

both.

echinacea. 

what the hell is that?

homeopathic. proven to yadda yadda yadda... 

fuck that tastes awful. ah well.

oh. spicy curry. extra spicy. it's supposed to help clear sinuses.

really.

yes, really. doctors recommend it and everything.

mmmm... spicy curry, painkillers, opiates, homeopathics, the 'feds and beer. 

well of course there's beer, you can't have spicy curry without beer.

i'm feeling better already. 

a wee whisky before bed and this cold's history...

not quite a summation

I've been remiss. A very long time without words, or even a word.

To distil the goings on of the last few weeks into a coherent post would be difficult. 

To be honest, I'm not sure I remember everything that's happened. Several 4 or 5 am finishes followed by 9am starts, the odd day off to hibernate, endless takeaway pizzas, whiskies, beers, fine wine and enough espresso to knock out the most stalwart Milanese. Then there's the gingerbread lattés bolstered with fine cognac, sushi, Thai curry, Bengali curry, Afghani curry, roast venison, fine cheese, gallons of port, the odd sherry, a criminally corked Burgundy and many, many late night drams of Laphroaig Quarter Cask. 

I've had moments of heroism, moments of cowardice and moments of apathy. Rage, glee and bewilderment set my heart racing, sinking and singing in turn. Sometimes my brain refused to stop, sometimes it refused to start. 

My shoulder's been cried on, and I've held back my own tears. 

I danced on tables, singing into a small umbrella. 

I drove 13 hours when it should only have been 8 and a half. 

I made it to London though, and here I am.

And now the tree sits naked, for there are no lights. You have to do the lights first. Without them it sits naked, boxes of decorations surround it, unopened and waiting. 

sunday musings

It's dark at four, am and pm. A mis-timed nap or too-late a night and you don't see the daylight. 

The whiteness of the Christmas lights is relative. Compared to the silver-lined brilliance of the stars they're madeirized, tarnished brass, but no less cheerful for it. They're warming, while the beauty and clearness of the stars chills. 

It's the right time of year for epiphanies, regardless of belief. The crisp cold of the air brings clarity, and not just of the starlight. As usual, it's the simple truths that come out - overlooked, ignored or denied until now. They're revelation brings comfort regardless of the mind and heart's turmoil. 

The clouds still linger, but the space between them expands, the starlight shines through and I see clearly, myself, writing. 

choices or decisions.

 It's either ruptured ligaments or torn cartilage. Or perhaps torn ligaments or ruptured cartilage? 

I'm not sure which. Even if I had a choice, which I don't, I don't know which I'd choose. Shot in the knee or smashed with a sledge hammer? 

Given such options I look to happier decisions. Short stories, novels or travel writing - the three highest stacks in my piles of the unwritten. 

Self-discipline has given way to misplaced self-pity. 

What a load of bollocks. 

I'll choose the former and flip a coin as to the ligaments and cartilage. 

pics from an adventure

Why do guys become such weenies when they have a cold/injury? Please ignore my self-pitying previous post. Instead have a peak at the pics from my most recent adventure.

My knee does still hurt though. I'm icing it as I type this.

cane and unable

My knee has not experienced the stratospheric miraculous recovery that I had hoped for. In fact, I am now using a cane. The cane isn't for my bad knee though, it's for my good knee. It's not liking the extra work and limping on both legs can't be good. So I've succumbed to the cane - I've not used one since blood poisoning nearly lead to the amputation of my right foot. 

That's another long, stupid story that I hesitate to commit to paper or web. 

The cane is bizarre - with time it can become like another appendage. I hope to be better before that, but in the meantime I hobble the street, counting my pace, trying to make sure it's doing its job. I look like Hugh Laurie's House in both infirmity and miserable demeanor, but in nothing else.

It could be worse, I know that. It could always be worse. 

It could have been both knees.

spidery ink

Webs of hair thin black lines creep from the letters. The ink I use is too heavy and the pages bleed, smudges abound and my hand cramps as the day's happenings come back. I sift through what matters and doesn't, what doesn't matter but amuses and what might matter later, when I think about it. Down it goes. The narrow roads, the hills, the water, the endless sheep, the horny does and hornier stags, the endlessly changing sky, the vast expanses, the towering mountains appearing from the clouds in silence. The teasing sun, occasionally shining a spotlight on some deserted stretch of nowhere, drawing our eyes towards yet more indescribable beauty. 

It's all there, in my swollen notebook - over a thousand miles of notes, snippets of tales, beginnings and endings. 

An adventure.

limping pizza

Right. I think I need to stop eating pizza. In fact, I'm not going to have a pizza again in 2007. Pepperoni, jalapenos and extra cheese have done me in for the last time this year. 

In other news, I've thrown my knee out and am limping like a gimp. The tale surrounding it is one of complete and total idiocy. I'm not quite ready to tell it yet. 

Tomorrow is another adventure. And adventure with a limp.

overdue

Different inks from different pens - twenty or thirty pages of notes taken a year ago almost to the day. It's a chronicle, a diary, a journal of a small adventure, a road trip throughout the highlands - from south to north and from east to west and back east again. It starts with a night in the great hall at Tullibole and finishes somewhere along the A9, heading south. 

I was diligent in keeping notes and narrative. Every night before bed, every spare moment I updated. I lost pen after pen. I don't think any entry is in the same ink as the one prior. The routine grew on me. The questions of the day settled by chronicling them. Sleep never eluded me on that trip, though it was a strange and different bed every night. 

The plan was to clean it up. Type everything up, flesh it out, give it some reflection, then shop it. 

Instead it sits among my pile of the unwritten. I read it now and I'm surprised at how much I've forgotten. It needs work. It sits there and I feel urgency and trepidation in turn.

Sunday sees another road trip, to even more remote corners of the north, to Scotland's empty quarter above Ullapool. Gnarled coast and tiny roads await, as does my notebook. Perhaps this new adventure will stir the memories of the old one. Perhaps. 

I hope so. The pile of unwritten is growing, and there's too much overdue.

And I need a new adventure.

monday boredom.

The bar's quiet - a bunch of drunks, Scots and Yorkshiremen, sit on the couches and mutter gibberish. I can't even be bothered to eavesdrop. We've shut the doors to keep the cold out. The tide's receded and there's little sound from the sea. The boom of distant fireworks thud and echo every few minutes. It is the fifth after all - remember, remember and all that.

Only yesterday the car swerved along the wee highland roads like a roller-coaster, surrounded by the autumn's silent fireworks, vibrant in defiance of the dreich, overcast skies. We pulled over and wandered through the woods, following trails and half-trails towards a lazy stretch of river. Small adventures are better than no adventures, and this seemed perfect for a brisk November Sunday.

Afterwards the fire popped and the soft scent of wood smoke drifted throughout the pub. The food and beer warmed our bellies. We chatted in quiet, happy tones, planning new adventures.

Monday comes first though, and the rest of them. And sometimes a quiet bar with loud, irrelevant drunks isn't a bad thing.

Photos here.