The Pandemic.

 

Only three words to describe the weather in Scotland at the moment:  drizzly, dreich and dark.  Edinburgh city is usually a bustling, busy place at this time of year.  I miss the bright, noisy German Market; the shop windows with flashing lights and tinsel; the crowds appearing in the centre preparing for the new year concert.  But now, with the pandemic, all is closed for the winter and will remain this way till an all-clear is given.  That may be a long time away. 

I have an urge to help during this time, but the options seem limited.  Round the corner from my house there is a church which has been helping the hungry and homeless by serving food to the people standing in line outside the doors.  This year all has been cancelled.  There are opportunities for helping others, but mustering up the energy to contribute seems difficult.  My body and mind are often in  torpor.  My phone skills, whatever little I had,  have deteriorated to the extent that I find it difficult to talk.  Zoom has certainly provided an alternative to face to face meetings:  the U3A photographic group and some sessions with the Buddhist community have helped to overcome the solitariness that has come with the lockdown.  But to actually pick up the phone and talk has become so difficult.   

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Now that both my children and my five grandchildren have moved out of the city my wife and I have been looking at various options.  After 31 years at Elgin Terrace in the heart of the city, moving is not an easy choice.  A couple of houses have appeared on the market in Livingstone near the kids, but they've been sold too quickly for us to keep up with an offer.  

Certainly, our old house is in need of repairs and we've arranged for a pre-evaluation in January.  That should give us some time to make a few cosmetic repairs, especially in the cellar where some water has been leaking and causing a small puddle at the base of the outside wall.  But with the situation the way it is, the selling and buying may take longer that we want to wait.

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Photo: Yeshe.  Whin Park, Inverness

EDINBURGH CITY

Sunset sky on fire from Arthur's Seat

On an early winter's day walking around Arthur's Seat you can't help but marvel at the freshness and beauty of the park as the sun sets and birds take flight to their nesting grounds.

Here on Arthur's Seat, James Hutton (1726-1797), the "Father of Modern Geology", discovered the rocks that revealed the nature of geological time. Relating the strata of the rocks to the passage of the millenia, Hutton was able to relate the passage of events to the chronological history of the earth and consequently established geology as a science.  He approached his science with a mindfulness that allowed him to reason that the earth was perpetually evolving with mountains being formed and erosion shaping the hills and valleys. Previously it was thought and believed that the earth was only six thousand years old.  Even today, the creationists still believe that the earth is young and God created the earth in six days.  But it takes someone like Hutton to think laterally, without accepting the uninformed and unproven dogmatism of the church: and it takes someone who is overly-educated or simple in their beliefs to take it as gospel that the earth is as young as six thousand years.

As Bill Hicks said, God put dinosaur bones in the earth to test us?  You were put on the earth to test me. 

Now, to look at the strata of the rocks, we can see how the pressure of the surrounding earth has pushed them to an almost vertical orientation.  That Arthur's Seat was a volcano is now without doubt. The castle rock, I remember my geography teacher telling me, is a plug from the main volcano which erupted 350 million years ago.  The shape of the Seat is evidence that a glacier moved from the west to the east and left a slope on the latter's side. 

The "tail" of the mountain running off to the east

But to walk in the freshness of the hills and valleys right in the centre of Edinburgh is an escape from the traffic and the noise of the city.  How lucky we are to live here.  Despite the storms, the cold in winter, the often damp and humid summers, we have a lot to gain in terms of health and safety.

CATS

THE NEIGHBOUR'S BACK GARDEN

Temporarily staying with my daughter in Edinburgh before moving into my son's flat in another part of the city till my own house is vacated by lodgers in September.  Life can get complicated.

My daughter's flat is in a quiet street about 150 yards long in the south of the city and has a surprising amount of disabled parking places over its short length.  Even more surprising is the number of cars in the street, mostly new or nearly new, especially in the disabled parking bays. I've yet to see anyone with a zimmer, a stick or even a limp.

In the short time I've been here, I've noticed another peculiar phenomenon; the number of cats in the street. They seem to be all over the place.  One ginger tom called Ben, a real bully, spends most of the time when it's not sleeping, threatening the other cats in the area.  Leave your door open for a few minutes and he seems to appear from nowhere, sniffing around the stoop and staring at you disdainfully if you try to chase him away.  I recently read that they can carry a virus which can turn deadly.  The virus is closely related to the Mers and Sars coronaviruses which can be fatal.  Now that my daughter is expecting her first child, she will have to be careful with the cats.

DORA

                                                  

                                                         FRED

Next door the neighbour has five cats.  She lives with her 40-year old son and they don't seem to do much except add to the collection of statues and ornaments in the garden.  The son's job is to change the garden around according to the mother's whim, which seems to be on a weekly basis when you can see him hefting heavy rocks around and placing them in various places not too far from where he took them.

ORNAMENTS IN THE FRONT GARDEN

She tells me she's allergic to cats.  I ask, What are you dong with so many cats, them?

Ah, she says, I stay away from them but there's one cat, Dora, who's threatened by Ben in the living room at night so I have to keep her in my bedroom.  She stays in the corner but when I'm asleep she crawls on to my bed.  I wake up in the morning with a bad cough.

The logic behind this I can't really fathom.  They're all a bit strange around here.  Watchful eyes and lots of secrets, I would guess.

Life on the Road

Now in a chalet near Margaret river.  Outside is my ute (utility vehicle) lent by my nephew Mick.  A white Ford Falcon with an open back and with Swan’s Plumbing and Gas written on the side, the S in the shape of a swan reminiscent of the logo used in Fulmaya’s school in Kathmandu, Ideal Boarding School. 

A noisy bugger but automatic, so easy on my arthritic hip.  She uses LPG which making it within my budget at 80 cents a litre. The roads are well metalled and smooth to ride on.  Not missing the pot holes and tram lines in Edinburgh.  Sensible speed limits are on signposts which change as the road conditions change.  So far, everyone keeps to within the limits and all seem to be careful drivers.

We’re staying near Gracetown, a small area about a 5-minute drive from the beach by the Indian Ocean.  The names around the area are strange to the ear, some very English sounding, and some derived from the aboriginal:  Cowarumup, Witchcliffe, Bushys Dream, Tanahmarah Road, Harmony Forest, Jewel Cave, Yallingup Maze, to name a few of the more attractive names.  The area map is also dotted with hundreds of vinyards, the products of which are available in the local shops.  The variety is astounding ranging from a litre of the cheapest at about $7 with the more expensive about $30-$120 and more.

The chalet is in the middle of what seems to a rain forest with lots of greenery and tropical flora.  I saw a couple of kangaroos grazing on an open space.  A first.  Inside there is a sitting room with adjoining kitchen, a double bedroom and another bedroom with bunk beds.  Obviously far too big for the two of us.   The bathroom has a Jacuzzi in the bath and a shower stall.  High on a wall in the sitting room is a Fujitsu air conditioner just like the one we had in Bangalore, except in India we used the cool function whereas here we use the heating function.

Not missing the tough and rumble of mainstream, the smiting of the usurpers of discipline with the sharpened tongue of scorn, the dark sarcasm. In a special school, any utterances are taken literally and euphemistic allusion vaporise like misty condensing expirations in a winter gust. A teacher in a special school must be gentle with the provision to use admonishment (a restrained rebuke) to build trust and delineate boundaries that correspond with finely hone parameters of expected bahaviour. And with the setting aside of the tried-in-the-jungle bludgeoning acerbic wit that responds to a smidgen of quickly accreted challenge with the minimalistic subconscious alacrity one needs to drive a car, ride a bike or swim, education for the sake of learning rises like the freshening sun on a spring morning evidenced in polite and accepting co-existance.

Special Education

At the fag end of my time in teaching I find myself as a substitute teacher at Pilrig Special School in Edinburgh. Quite the other end of the spectrum from mainstream education. For the first time, the priority is education rather than discipline. The latter is now by the way and such a minor part of the whole process that I can now focus on the children and the barriers they face. Of course, the levels of education are very low (but the strategies used to teach them are no less challenging than in mainstream) with few children able to express themselves. But they show respect, something I'm not used to. And bejeez, they respond to encouragement. A little bit of praise goes a long way.Yes, it's interesting. There are so many different levels of difficulty. But I've always thought that every child has special educational needs anyway. With 10 max in a class, I'm at last able to reach the less able, and they are really less able.

Magic Numbers

Walked round Arthur's Seat, an extinct volcano looming above Edinburgh. Looking at my pedometer at the end of the walk, I discover with no uncertain incredulity that it reads 9999 steps. 10,0000-steps a day is the recommended minimum target to keep healthy and active. I'm one-step shy of the target. But who's counting? Well...me, obviously.