'Austerity takes toll on cradle of democracy'

Richard Pine has circulated his latest 'Greek letter' in The Irish Times but writes:

I have been unable to create a link to my column in yesterday's Irish Times (Wednesday 18 September). I am therefore sending it in the body of this email. The brutal killing (by stabbing) of an anti-Nazi rap artist, Pavlos Fyssas, by a member of Golden Dawn last night has raised the 'hate' and the 'fear' stakes even further. If you do not wish to receive copies of my future columns, please notify me and I will remove your name from the distribution list. Sincerely Richard Pine

'Extremism is fast becoming a political default in this humiliated country' Photo: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

Wed, Sep 18, 2013, 01:00

First published:Wed, Sep 18, 2013, 01:00

   

Given the low opinion held by most citizens of their political leaders, and of international institutions such as the EU and IMF, it’s astonishing that we seem to cling to the concept of democracy – especially in Greece, where the word was invented – to describe government of the people by the people. Today it’s all up for questioning, including the composition of the nation state.

There is a significant gap between our faith in the concept of democracy and our suspicion of the democratic process which produces people we cannot trust. A mismatch between the ideal and the real, including the operation of the civil service, the clientelist system and the passing of parliamentary seats from father to son – or daughter – a not unknown phenomenon in Ireland.

Do we distrust our fellow citizens because we fear that, as soon as elected, they will turn into powermongers, the political equivalent of werewolves or Frankenstein’s monster? In Greece we have a democratically elected parliament and a government appointed under the terms of the constitution, rejected and abhorred by the vast majority of voters.

Pavlos Fyssas Παύλος Φύσσας ~ April 1979 – 18 September 2013

Extremism
Plutocracy, oligarchy, autocracy, monarchy (all words with Greek roots) have their supporters, and even fascism (definitely not of Greek origin) has a hold in modern Greece (as reported in last month’s letter) although, as the third largest political party in the opinion polls, Golden Dawn is still not yet the overwhelming popular choice, but may have a very significant stake in the next parliament, with 14 per cent of the vote in current opinion polls.

But there is another Greek term gathering momentum today: anarchism. Many citizens, disenchanted with the political system which they regard as having failed the state, have turned their backs on politics and, instead, advocate lawlessness and, at its most extreme, tearing down political and social structures by terrorist means. The group Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire (one of the most successful) describes its mission as 'urban guerrilla warfare'.

I am surprised that the Greek indignados (who made such a dignified, peaceful process in Athens’ Constitution Square for many weeks in 2011) have not re-emerged during the latest crisis; some of them are merely disenchanted with all forms of protest, but I expect that many, more aggressive types, are actively pursuing the anarchist option.

At one end of the spectrum is the fascist Golden Dawn, burning synagogues and mosques and beating up migrants and gays; at the other are the various terrorist groups, the latest of which calls itself Untamed Desires, which sounds more like the title of a porno movie than a bunch of arsonists and bombers attacking civil servants, lawmakers and judges.

Richard Pine

Back to the future - 23 Sep'13 Nightmare on Democracy Street by Nick Malkoutzis on Macropolis
***
Just driving dully along I catch people on the beach at Ipsos enjoying their holiday in the sun.

Κι εγώ. In readiness for the wind vane removed from the roof of Brin Croft and due here by carrier at the start of next month, I've attached the iron bracket made for me by Steve Lee to a corner of the house. I bought five 9 inch coach bolts and the largest rawlplugs I could buy; dug out a metre length chunk of wood recovered from the beach and rejected as too good for the firewood in the apothiki, and drilled five holes in it. On a stepladder I offered the beam to the wall and, through the holes in the wood, drilled five marker holes on the mortar, then using my SDS drill followed these with five deeper holes in the stonework of the house. I filled these with a dollop of strong glue and then, with the coach bolts through the beam, and the rawlplugs lightly screwed on the end of each, offered the whole to the wall and tapped it home, until I could place a bottle spanner on each coach bolt and tighten.

I painted the wood, now tight on the wall, to match, and with a spirit-level positioned Steve's bracket, its end just beyond the gutter, pointing as vertical as I could make it. I gave it a couple of coats of rust resistant black gloss before using four four inch coach bolts to fix it firmly ready for the vane. I shall need a compass to find the north, or perhaps use the north star, or the wind vane on the church a few yards down Democracy Street.

Summer Song's ready to go back in the sea

A succession of clear skies and proliferating greenery and, with the heat, the steady increase of public voices up and down Democracy Street, among our neighbours and people walking by, sometimes stopping for conversation by the green railing at the top of our shared steps now, as everywhere over this late Easter across Greece, outlined with dazzling whitewash, asvesti, ασβεστή.

Dave has booked the crane to put Summersong back in the water for Saturday - tomorrow. He'd texted me ‘today finally finished the outside paintwork ….’ 

How I relish this sub-plot. It also makes me nervous. Dave got back from delivering a yacht to Trieste last week “a four day job that took a week. We had three separate forecasts from reliable sources predicting light headwinds all the way. We got into the straits opposite Saranda and it blew up force 6, gusting higher, and then steady headwinds for the next 600 miles. The Jeanneau has a broad hull for charter accommodation. Up she went. Down she went, crash, bang, crash, bang, No let up. And the porpoises. They’d come up alongside and look at you. You’d look back. Think they’d gone away and look in another direction. Whoosh it’s standing on its tail saying ‘boo’ and peering in your face eye to eye”

Dave works on Summer Song

Lin and I pursue a procession of jobs in and out of the house, Effi and Adoni next door continue to adorn their garden with more plants brought with them from Thrace before Easter. I’ve drilled holes in the base of make-shift flowerpots for her. Effi paints paint tins deep blue and concrete breezeblocks red before filling them with soil to make them into planters. Lin’s painting doors. 

I’ve helped sand them. I’ve shaved the edges of our wooden front door to make it open and close more freely, tidied the electric cables leading to the municipal light bolted into the side of our house, cleaned the windows of winter grime, transferred a heap of sorted thigh tiles from under our veranda to the apothiki, mended a puncture in the rear wheel of my Brompton...

...rebuilt the wooden carrier on the back of my larger bicycle, tidied out the porch locker and inserted a cut down palette to keep above damp the odd sacks of cement, plaster and the dusty dye that mixes with asvesti to give it a colour, and prepared, with sanding and paint scraper, one side of the house above the side balcony for painting, warning Vasiliki there might be some dust. Her carpets and rugs were coming in anyway, well sun-dried. 

Painting the house

I'm not a good handyman. As Lin, who is, says “You break things”, I’m unco-ordinated, slightly clumsy. My mother, ages ago, said my dad was “all fingers and thumbs” when it came to practical tasks involving building, joinery, electrics or plumbing. My stepfather was quite the opposite, able to drive a desk as well as a workbench, creative in advertising, broadcasting and during the war stripping down the gear box of a tank (I saw his diagrams in an old file) and, later when the war office discovered them, exercising his talents as a communicator, creating propaganda. I didn’t learn to be tidy until I sailed a small boat and was made forcefully aware, by waves, of the consequences of not being ‘shipshape’. 'Spick and span' is not my inclination – in clothes, hair, shoes or any other walk of life – like gardening. It can be done but I have to work at it, hence my struggle with digging and sowing, the essential precursors of growing anything in soil. How I admire and respect people with craft, who have artistry in their hands whether laying tiles, fiddling with circuitry, inserting stitches, turning a pot, tying a fly, making a dove-tail joint and all the myriad brilliances humans do with their hands. What I do succeed in - jobs others would hardly reckon on giving a second thought - gives me pride, though it takes ages, involves endless fiddling, and an inventory of tools that might or might not be needed. The other day I made a typical mistake. Having treated myself to a SDS drill to deal with drilling in stone and brick, I added a conventional chuck in my order so’s I could use my existing wood drills. I wanted to drill through the house wall to attach an outside electric socket. The only masonry drill long enough was a conventional one. I inserted it in the chuck adapted for the SDS; set the drill on hammer – and of course stripped the thread of the adaptor chuck. Later I spent a good few euros buying a sufficient length SDS drill. A craftsman would have known not to make such an expensive mistake. I tell myself I must have some practical abilities. I can change punctures on bicycles. I taught myself simple astral navigation long ago so’s I could use a sextant to find where we were in the Atlantic. I’ve taken down a small mast in the middle of the Bay of Biscay and replaced its broken halliard pulley. I’ve added a veranda to my allotment shed. I can change the inner tube on the back wheel of a Brompton – in the rain. 
And rain, with thunder, was what we got in abundance for one day earlier in the week, even as the village lost its water supply for twelve hours and I borrowed water for washing and flushing....

... from Effi's and Adoni's well just across the path between us.
After what seems like over a year of surface preparation Linda has started painting the outside of the house. I've been filling in small spaces she can't reach, handing up paint pots, and holding the stepladder steady for her.

*** *** ***
Around noon on Easter Sunday, Vasiliki brought around a plate of lamb meat, including delectable kokoretsi κοκορέτσι. Our other neighbours brought us more from their spit (squeaking away through the morning) plus two glasses of raki.

Κοκορέτσι και ρακί από την Μαρία και τον Ιωάννη

We were also given red dyed hard boiled eggs - the ones you have to try and crack by knocking them together with another, like conkers (sort of). In return Lin and I wrote Easter cards and she made chocolate eggs specially decorated and wrapped for our neighbours' children.
For our Easter Sunday supper we were invited to Paul and Cinty's house where, with his parents, Phil and Sheila, and his brother Mark and Sally we enjoyed a balmy evening, buzzed by swallows as dusk settled on us. No lamb on a spit but, instead, a succulent successon of meats off the barbecue - lamb chops, sausages, souvlaki, liver, pork belly draft, a delicately carved wood pigeon...salads and, later, all the strawberries and cream we could eat...

...and and I enjoyed my home made Margarita from a salt-rimed glass.

I'll especially recall a reflective chat about Golden Dawn, Χρυσή Αυγή; the worry that there's a generation in Greece who've not only forgotten the nature of authoritarian rule, but actually think it might be what's needed now. "It means" said C, reflecting her own experience of dictatorial rule even three years after the fall of the Junta, "that the police are in charge and the preferences and prejudices of a particular police officer will determine your case." I recalled that G.K. Chesterton, initially sympathetic to Fascism, in Italy and Spain, as a solution to democratic failure, issued a pre-war warning about Nazism in German; if it happened in England "imagine" he wrote "if in each street the man in charge of the rest of us, with legal authority to boss the rest of us about, is the school bully."

Golden Dawn office in Greece

From Jan D in York:

 …The latest Rich List has been published of the 1000 wealthiest people in Britain. They constitute 0.003% of the population. In the last year alone they have increased their wealth by £35billion, and since the crash four years ago they have increased their wealth by £190 billion (Remember the phrase “we are all in this together").

Their combined wealth is £449billion (the public sector deficit is approx. £120 billion). There are now 88 billionaires in Britain. During the same time there has been a 7% reduction in real wages. This year £19billion has been removed from welfare benefits and just now £320million (an insignificant figure to government finance) has been removed from the Independent Living Fund for 20,000 disabled people. The government has ‘transferred’ this duty to Local Authorities, but there is no money beyond 2015, so effectively they are closing the fund without ever having told anybody. There has been a legal challenge by disabled people which they lost. They are appealing. A good example of ideology triumphing over evidence or rationality let alone morality. Obviously the government sees many disabled people as ‘skivers’ (morally reprehensible) and not the ‘strivers’ (morally superior) the government wants to promote. To be disabled is therefore by definition being a ‘skiver’ in other words ‘undesirable’. They don't dare to say this of course, but the actions speak for themselves. This is getting uncomfortably close to what I read about in Professor Evans’ books on the Third Reich. 

Zoe Williams said the following about this: "What I mind the most is the readiness with which government will now lie. The prime minister lies about the national debt. The secretary of state will lie about immigration. The chancellor will lie about benefit claimants. They will be wrapped over the knuckles by Office of National Statistics or Office for Budget Responsibility, take their punishment and go straight out and lie again". Despite this the government’s ‘narrative’ resonates and is believed by large sections, in some cases, the majority of the population. This would make an interesting study! Surely this provides LAs with an opportunity to offer a different moral vision based on hard evidence – a localism based on transparency, accountability and honesty. Am I being naïve again? On a lighter note, just noticed that after twenty years of a failing austerity regime, Japan has decided to do a U-turn and pump money into the economy. Stock markets immediately shot up! Best Jan

*** ***
On Easter Monday we joined the long happy parade around the boundaries of Ano Korakiana:

Η επανεμφάνιση μετά από πολλές δεκαετίες της εικόνας της Παναγίας της «Δημοσιάνας» στη Λιτανεία της 2ης Μέρας του Πάσχα στο χωριό, επανέφερε στη μνήμη των παλαιοτέρων τα προβλήματα λειψυδρίας και τις σχετικές παρακλήσεις. Πραγματικά, με το πέρας της Λειτουργίας στον Άη-Θανάση και ενώ διαρκούσε η προετοιμασία των τμημάτων της Λιτανείας, ο ουρανός συννέφιασε και άρχισε να ψιχαλίζει για αρκετή ώρα. Το γεγονός ξάφνιασε αρκετούς, που προσέτρεξαν σε όποιο πρόσφορο καταφύγιο για την προστασία από τη βροχή, ακόμη δε και κάτω από το μπαρλακί. Λίγο αργότερα και ενώ η ψιλή βροχή συνεχιζόταν η Λιτανεία θα ξεκινήσει. Νέο στοιχείο της Λιτανείας, η διπρόσωπη εικόνα της Παναγίας, αφιερωμένη από την οικογένεια της Στάμως Αλεξίου Ιωνά, η οποία συντηρήθηκε πρόσφατα και από τη μια πλευρά εμφανίζει την Θεοτόκο με το Χριστό και από την άλλη τον Άγιο Αθανάσιο. Η εικόνα αυτή, που λιτανεύονταν μέχρι τις αρχές του περασμένου αιώνα και έφτανε έως την Παλαιοκαστρίτσα, βασταζόμενη από γυναίκες θα λάβει θέση κάτω από το μπαρλακί, ενώ η έτερη εικόνα, η γνωστή, της Αναστάσεως θα προηγηθεί, «ασκεπής». Η πομπή θα διαβεί τη Νεροσυρμή και από το γεφύρι του Βάρδα θα ανεβεί στη Βενετιά. Η πορεία στα στενά, στολισμένη με σκόρπια δαφνόφυλλα. Εκεί, στα σκαλιά του Άη-Γιάκωβου θα τελεστεί η πρώτη στάση για Δέηση. Στο δρόμο της Βενετιάς πλέον, η πομπή θα ανασυνταχθεί σε πλήρη ανάπτυξη. Στο γεφυράκι του Μούλου πρώτα θα μπουν τα παιδιά με το Σταυρό, τις λαμπάδες και τα εξαπτέρυγα και μετά οι σκόλες και τα φλάμπουρα. Θα ακολουθήσει τμήμα του Σχολικού Κέντρου Φαιάκων και μετά η Φιλαρμονική υπό τον Κώστα Ζερβόπουλο και η Χορωδία υπό τον Γιώργο Άνθη. Πιο πίσω το μπαρλακί και οι δύο εικόνες, συνοδευόμενες από άγημα του Ναυτικού (ύστερα από αρκετά χρόνια).Στις δε «γραμμές των επισήμων», ο Πρόεδρος και μέλη του Τοπικού Συμβουλίου, η εκπρόσωπος του Δήμου, κα Καποδίστρια, ο πολιτευτής κ. Γκίκας, ο τέως Αντινομάρχης Τάκης Μεταλληνός, ο Πρόεδρος των Άνω Κορακιανιτών Αθηνών Σπύρος Κένταρχος κ.ά. Μετά τη στροφή της Κέκας θα ψαλεί μία ακόμη δέηση προς τον Άη-Γιώργη, καθώς και το «Μεγαλυνάριο» του Αγίου, που ψελνόταν επί εποχής παπα-Κουρίνη. Η Τρίτη δέηση θα ψαλεί στον Άγιο, στην Αρκούδενα και η πομπή αφού φτάσει στην άκρη της Μουργάδας, θα κατηφορίσει για τον αποκάτω δρόμο και από εκεί για τον Άη-Θανάση. Εκεί, όπως πάντα, ένα δροσερό κέρασμα και άρτος θα περιμένουν τους πιστούς.

Η επανεμφάνιση μετά από πολλές δεκαετίες της εικόνας της Παναγίας της «Δημοσιάνας» στη Λιτανεία της 2^ης Μέρας του Πάσχα στο χωριό, επανέφερε στη μνήμη των παλαιοτέρων τα προβλήματα λειψυδρίας και τις σχετικές παρακλήσεις. Πραγματικά, με το πέρας της Λειτουργίας στον Άη-Θανάση και ενώ διαρκούσε η προετοιμασία των τμημάτων της Λιτανείας, ο ουρανός συννέφιασε και άρχισε να ψιχαλίζει για αρκετή ώρα.

Το γεγονός ξάφνιασε αρκετούς, που προσέτρεξαν σε όποιο πρόσφορο καταφύγιο για την προστασία από τη βροχή, ακόμη δε και κάτω από το μπαρλακί. Λίγο αργότερα και ενώ η ψιλή βροχή συνεχιζόταν η Λιτανεία θα ξεκινήσει.

Νέο στοιχείο της Λιτανείας, η διπρόσωπη εικόνα της Παναγίας, αφιερωμένη από την οικογένεια της Στάμως Αλεξίου Ιωνά, η οποία συντηρήθηκε πρόσφατα και από τη μια πλευρά εμφανίζει την Θεοτόκο με το Χριστό και από την άλλη τον Άγιο Αθανάσιο. Η εικόνα αυτή, που λιτανεύονταν μέχρι τις αρχές του περασμένου αιώνα και έφτανε έως την Παλαιοκαστρίτσα, βασταζόμενη από γυναίκες θα λάβει θέση κάτω από το μπαρλακί, ενώ η έτερη εικόνα, η γνωστή, της Αναστάσεως θα προηγηθεί, «ασκεπής».

Η πομπή θα διαβεί τη Νεροσυρμή και από το γεφύρι του Βάρδα θα ανεβεί στη Βενετιά. Η πορεία στα στενά, στολισμένη με σκόρπια δαφνόφυλλα. Εκεί, στα σκαλιά του Άη-Γιάκωβου θα τελεστεί η πρώτη στάση για Δέηση.

Στο δρόμο της Βενετιάς πλέον, η πομπή θα ανασυνταχθεί σε πλήρη ανάπτυξη. Στο γεφυράκι του Μούλου πρώτα θα μπουν τα παιδιά με το Σταυρό, τις λαμπάδες και τα εξαπτέρυγα και μετά οι σκόλες και τα φλάμπουρα. Θα ακολουθήσει τμήμα του Σχολικού Κέντρου Φαιάκων και μετά η Φιλαρμονική υπό τον Κώστα Ζερβόπουλο και η Χορωδία υπό τον Γιώργο Άνθη. Πιο πίσω το μπαρλακί και οι δύο εικόνες, συνοδευόμενες από άγημα του Ναυτικού (ύστερα από αρκετά χρόνια).Στις δε «γραμμές των επισήμων», ο Πρόεδρος και μέλη του Τοπικού Συμβουλίου, η εκπρόσωπος του Δήμου, κα Καποδίστρια, ο πολιτευτής κ. Γκίκας, ο τέως Αντινομάρχης Τάκης Μεταλληνός, ο Πρόεδρος των Άνω Κορακιανιτών Αθηνών Σπύρος Κένταρχος κ.ά.

Μετά τη στροφή της Κέκας θα ψαλεί μία ακόμη δέηση προς τον Άη-Γιώργη, καθώς και το «Μεγαλυνάριο» του Αγίου, που ψελνόταν επί εποχής παπα-Κουρίνη.

Η Τρίτη δέηση θα ψαλεί στον Άγιο, στην Αρκούδενα και η πομπή αφού φτάσει στην άκρη της Μουργάδας, θα κατηφορίσει για τον αποκάτω δρόμο και από εκεί για τον Άη-Θανάση.

Εκεί, όπως πάντα, ένα δροσερό κέρασμα και άρτος θα περιμένουν τους πιστούς.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Egg Volk - ο Εφιάλτης θα φανεί στο τέλος

Blokko in Kokkinnia in Athens on 17 August 1944

From a recent interview with Yanis Varoufakis Γιάνης Βαρουφάκης

What do you know about the rise of right-wing Neo-Nazi groups (in Greece). What impact are they having? What can you tell us about the Golden Dawn Party, Χρυσή Αυγή?

The Golden Dawn Party is not an extreme right wing party. It is not even a neo-Nazi party. It is a fully-fledged Nazi gang. And here lies the great paradox: Greece, along with Yugoslavia, fought the most dogged, bloody, successful resistance against the Nazis during the Second World War, giving the Nazis a serious run for their money, so to speak. The bulk of the population rose up against them with great acts of valour that inspired the Allies at a time when Nazism was almost unopposed in Europe. Yet, there were collaborators – as there always are*. Hooded men that went around the towns and the villages with the SS and the Wehrmacht, pointing out the resistance fighters.

Προδότης της χώρας του

The Golden Dawn gang is their direct descendant. You see, after the Nazis retreated from Greece, quite tragically, their collaborators managed to infiltrate the armed forces (following the Civil War in which the Establishment’s war against the Left, thus giving a chance to the Nazi collaborators to remain ‘useful’ to the state); so much so that in 1967 there was a coup d’etat that put Greece under a neo-fascist dictatorship for seven years. Since the end of that sorry episode, the remnants of that regime have been sidelined by a prospering democracy. However, after the economic and social implosion of the past three years, the worst elements of that rump (who had never really gone away; instead, they were biding their time, reciting Mein Kampf) re-appeared using purposely the tactics of the 1920s German Nazi party and, in particular, of Goebbels. By this I mean that they adopted a narrative on the crisis that is split in two parts: The first part is an utterly sensible critique of crony financialised capitalism (an exact copy of Goebbels’ 1927 critique of the failures of midwar capitalism). Then comes the second part: blaming the foreigner for the crisis (who can be Pakistani just as he can be a Jew) and calling for ethnic cleansing. Add to this mix: (a) offers of personal security services to hungry pensioners too frightened to step into the street, (b) free food and vegetables only for ‘ethnically pure' Greeks, and (c) stormtroopers savagely attacking migrants and Greeks opposing them, and what you get is the ‘total recall’ of the bleakest aspects of the 1920s and 1930s.

Χρυσή Αυγή υποστηρικτές στο λεωφορείο

In Axion Esti Odysseus Elytis Οδυσσέας Ελύτης, describes this Greek struggle

 ...it cannot be they without you nor can it be you without them… and you must face them without fail…those who wear the black shirt...who speak the language of porcupines, raw-eaters, water-brutes, bread-fearers, the leadenfaced and the neocondors.

*Θερμοπύλες  

Τιμή σ’ εκείνους όπου στην ζωή των
ώρισαν και φυλάγουν Θερμοπύλες.
Ποτέ από το χρέος μη κινούντες·
δίκαιοι κ’ ίσιοι σ’ όλες των τες πράξεις,
αλλά με λύπη κιόλας κ’ ευσπλαχνία·
γενναίοι οσάκις είναι πλούσιοι, κι όταν
είναι πτωχοί, πάλ’ εις μικρόν γενναίοι,
πάλι συντρέχοντες όσο μπορούνε·
πάντοτε την αλήθεια ομιλούντες,
πλην χωρίς μίσος για τους ψευδομένους.
Και περισσότερη τιμή τούς πρέπει
όταν προβλέπουν (και πολλοί προβλέπουν)
πως ο Εφιάλτης θα φανεί στο τέλος,
κ’ οι Μήδοι επί τέλους θα διαβούνε.                                                    

Καβάφης

...and some thoughts on our British Egg Volk

*** *** ***
On Wednesday morning Amy left with Oliver to drive south to her home in Birmingham, leaving Lin, I and Liz in Brin Croft. Lin and I have been working through a long list of errands. To my relief I realise I've learned enough plumbing craft to out an end to a problem of several weeks with a tap in the kitchen.
"If you turn it off completely it stops for ever" said Liz
So it has to stay dribbling a stream of cold water "and it won't turn on fast at all"

The dribbling cold tap that won't turn on and won't turn off

I get out a trusty Allen wrench after using a slot screwdriver to ease off the tap cover like a car's hubcap, then a Philips screwdriver to remove the retaining screw in the tap capstan. I take that off and and get down to the spindle. Then a few loosenings of the tap body with the Allen releases the flow but reveals a leak between the tap body and the basin; which is why it was tightened up too much in the first place I guessed. I fiddle with loosening the tap body which increases the leak but improves the flow and tightening it, which reduces the leak etc, until, of a sudden, flow is fine and the leak has stopped. I beat my chest like King Kong.

We've been making an inventory of mum's disability gear - an electric buggy, electric reclining chair, adjustable bed, bath lift, wheel chair, walkers - one all-terrain...

...a Pilates exercise machine and more ingenious gadgets, tricky, (like her unused sealed medications) that ought to go to other countries that need them, to give away, let alone sell second-hand, even though some have been so little used.  I will have to decide what to simply donate to charity and if I receive offers - Lin will use some of the photos I've taken to float these things on ebay.

We've has two more visits by estate agents to get a preliminary assessment of Brin Croft, one pair of colleagues we especially liked as they'd done their homework on the house, including who'd done the original valuation on the house when Mum bought it. We've been discussing whether to include Littlemills Lochan  - our secret loch - as an option in the sale.

The Lochan 

On Thursday Helen Trussell visited from Logie Steading Bookshop. Lin had read a note she'd sent describing what she was looking out for. She sorted out mum's books to meet those criteria - books about the Highlands, maps of the area, especially old canvas backed ones, plus a range of novelists. She  offered us £110 for about 100 books, pamphlets, guide books and maps which seemed a fair price to share with Bay. Helen put  us in touch with Giles Pearson who deals in antiques at Logie Steading.

Giles came over with his van on Friday and made a range of offers but these were in a rather higher price range, so I could not let him buy anything until it had been run by my sister. This process of checking and double-checking things mum willed in her estate, and being assiduous about it is essential, but it creates a problem when negotiating with a potential purchaser of anything in the house. This will become more of an issue when Confirmation (Probate) is completed - probably in early April. Linda and I are constantly pondering the best way to clear the house prior to placing it on the market. There is no auction house in Inverness now. It's moved northward to Dingwall - twenty miles away. I'd had the idea of someone coming over with a van to remove all the items not going to beneficiaries, cataloguing them and paying us the amount raised. It looks trickier. Again we can probably raise larger sums if we are prepared to proceed with DIY selling on the web.
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I walked from Brin Croft on the edge of Inverarnie through the fields towards Inverarnie Cottage where there's a gate onto a forestry track which leads after half a mile to another gate which has a side opening for walkers. This leads south down the strath just above the River Farnack. A mile and a half beyond the gate there's a rough timber extraction track that zig zags...

...about three hundred and fifty feet up the side of the strath to a broad gravel track that runs about five miles between Loch Farr and Mid Lairgs Quarry, close to the A9 below Daviot. I left the ascending path to cut a corner in the zig zag ascent. The terrain as I expected became tricky, made uneven by old forestry trenches and ridges, dotted with pools of still water of unpredictable depth, and criss crossed with a mess of old and torn branches discarded during previous timber harvesting. Half up-rooted stumps, some rotting, lean in different directions offering hard edges upon which to fall. As I climbed I came upon a pocket swamp full of rushes and sphagnum that I skirted until it looked shallow enough to cross without sinking in muddy peat to my knees. "I should have stuck to the path" I muttered to myself.

Old plantation terrain

My thighs ached with the exertion of walking upwards. My shoulders ached with the strain of balancing myself, as I switched my stick from one hand to the other. But I would never have met this boulder - a glacial erratic dropped perhaps a 1000 miles from where the slow glacier picked it up thousands of years ago and, as it melted, dropped it on the side of Strath Nairn.

It was good to arrive on the big smooth forestry track with the steady and agreeable Ben Wyvis - Beinn Uais Hill of Terror - away in Easter Ross marking my horizon, shifting colour and shade with the clouds and setting sun...

...and head three and half miles back to where, in semi-darkness, I could turn off west down a gentle slope towards Wester Lairgs Farm, a couple of lights in the windows and the sound of continuing work in the barn. There are new people there - Jim and Jane. They have a sprightly West Highland terrier bitch who attached herself to Oscar and Cooky last time I passed by, until I shoo'd her home. Past the farm it was less than half a mile to another turn southward above Inverarnie Woods; then a mile to the grassy bank that leads beside a trickle to a small gate. I climb over it and walk up and over the Esker and, with the dogs still as fresh as when we left Brin Croft a few hours earlier, I walked in the dark across the familiar grazing, to the cattle grid next to the gate into my mother's house. Before relaxing with a cup of tea in front of a sturdy wood fire I towelled the dogs and let them indoors ahead of me. Liz had their suppers ready.
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On 15 Mar 2013, at 16:54, K wrote from America:

I have no idea how you turned up without a search on my iPad -- but it does make me feel connected!  :-)  k 

Hi K, That baby, my grandson Oliver, was born 1 April last year. The same year my mum Barbara died peacefully, I and my sister beside her in her own bed at age 95 and lucid until she fell into a sleep three days before she left us.
Now I’m in chilly Scotland helping handle probate and suffering a dose of man-flu for which Lin has no sympathy at all.  I caught it from the bab of course and this video shows how. Oscar’s here too of course.
Lovely to hear from you. The domestic landscape is good for us, but the state of our economy is another matter. Local government and public space is being whittled relentlessly away to be replaced by an undemocratic untransparent form of modern feudalism - propped up by expensively funded think tanks. X Simon (in the Highlands)

K replied:

Sorry to get Oliver's name wrong.  Grandchildren are so amazing....it is the only thing that ever makes me want to move--but not enough to actually do so -- we love Minneapolis, except at this time of year, when winter seems interminable.  Fortunately, it is also the height of the theater season, so there are great things to do indoors.
D lost his mother a bit over two years...about the same age as yours, and living alone until the end, when he went to Virginia for a weekend and ended up caring for her for a month. She was an amazing woman, but not exactly the cookies-and-milk type mother - like Barbara as I remember her. His grieving process included shingles, an ocular migraine that mimicked a stroke, various muscular issues that are still on-going, etc. The mind-body connection is out-in-the-open at these times in our lives, and you can chalk your flu up to that, I suspect, and not playing with Oliver!
That is the video that popped up, unannounced on my iPad.  The computer genies are at it again, letting me know that I need to spend time keeping in touch with people who have been part of my life in significant ways. 

Dear k. And I thought you’d glanced at a different video of me and dog Oscar (it exists). How funny you got the name wrong because that’s exactly what I do all the time! Calling Oscar Oliver and v.v. - it’s a family joke and I’m an old git! Not you tho’
Thanks for that insight on the mind-body connection. Makes lots of sense when I think back to both my dad’s and stepfather’s deaths - long ago now. Incidentally I’m already feeling better. Lin scoffs at psychology and psychosomatic explanation. Insists I’ve caught Oliver’s cold. This complete dismissal of a way of explaining the world that I cherish is I suspect why we get on, but why? The mysteries of marriage! I recall that Patrick Leigh Fermor in his book A Time to Keep Silence talks of the impossibility of a dialogue between a champion of theology and a champion of psychoanalysis ‘because the terms of reference of the antagonists would be so different and irreconcilable, so incapable of engaging, that the match might turn into a double exhibition of shadow boxing….”.
Hope Midwest winter lessens its grip soon.
This by the way was the video I thought you’d been seeing
I really enjoyed the film Lincoln! What a fascinating story of the messy morality of the great game of hi-politics. You are ever a part of my life. Love to all. Simon (in Scotland, then England then back to Greece)

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We are missing Sunday's Carnival in Ano Korakiana:

Δημοσιοποίήθηκε σήμερα το πρόγραμμα της αυριακής ημέρας (17 Μαρτίου 2013), τελευταίας Κυριακής της Αποκριάς, αλλά και της διοργάνωσης του Κορακιανίτικου Καρναβαλιού.
Σύμφωνα με αυτό, προβλέπονται:
Εκκίνηση της πομπής του Καρναβάλου στις 4,30 το απόγευμα από το Συνερταιρισμό και παρέλαση στον απάνω δρόμο του χωριού μέχρι την Πλατεία, με επιστροφή στην Πλάστιγγα.
Εκεί θα γίνουν οι αποκριάτικοι χοροί και θα διαβαστεί η Διαθήκη
Ακολούθως, στο Συνεταιρισμό (όροφος) θα παρουσιαστούν σκετς.
Η βραδιά θα κλείσει με Αποκριάτικο Χορό (στο ισόγειο του Συνεταιρισμού), με "ζωντανή" μουσική, ποτό και σουβλάκια.