I come and I go

Pulling out of Inverness

Sharon drove me and Oscar to Inverness station for a mid-morning train to Edinburgh. The weather is absurdly mild for January. Saying goodbye to Mum, giving her a quick kiss "Quickly now, darling.  You know I hate stringing things out" So it was long ago, with even less said, when I was off to boarding school - first at 6 years old. That's always my taste of parting. No better, no worse than something more effusive. I've got food for Oscar on the journey; for myself a miniature of Malt Whisky, two prosciutto sandwiches on rye, a length of bratwurst and my novel, reading the climactic chapters of Robert Edric's Cradle Song. It's a procedural - an un-thrilling thriller. That felt right for the chilling horror of its theme - the pursuit of a paedophile ring. I found tears welling in my eyes near the end. I know, as anyone who reads of it, who knows professionals who try to deal with it. of the scope and depth of depravity humans can plumb. Edric's minimalist prose connects the grim weather and scenery of his plot with something similar inside his criminals; which grows too inside those who pursue them.

Edinburgh Waverley, my train south

Later on my train from Edinburgh to New Street I watched a DVD of a film directed by Max Faerberboeck (The trailer makes it out a war film, which is a true, yet untrue, but viewed, along with the change of title to The Downfall of Berlin, as necessary publicity) of the book I've just read, anonymously authored, titled A Woman in Berlin, translated, quite recently from German, though published - then withdrawn - not long after the events they describe. The film was exciting, by no means schmaltzy, at times electric, but - despite the rich setting of a devastated city, costumes, special effects, voices, fine acting, score by the great Zbigniew Preisner - without the impact and realism of the book, where those things defined by the choices of the film-maker, are defined by the reader's imagination in the hands of the writer; an anonymous author describing her's and her companion's experiences in the form of a diary.
Oscar slept most of the eight-hour journey in a pleasantly uncrowded train. Lin met us at New Street.
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Yesterday afternoon I had a shorter walk than usual - along the Farnack, now running quieter than for the last few days, back along the puddled lane to Brin Croft - the terriers, my satellites, never bored. In the evening my mother took Sharon and me out to the Snow Goose for supper - a pub in a most unpromising setting next to the Inverness Retail Park with a good chef making superlative and well-served pub food - a juicy red steak, calamari, fried liver and bacon, plus some draft Deuchars Caledonian - a local beer which my mother also likes. We were especially sat by a lively log fire and a table to which  mum could draw up her wheelchair. We finished with Irish Coffee which mum to her chagrin had trouble drinking until Sharon with her usual swift attentiveness found her a more convenient shaped glass.

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Mark has sent me an email from the village with photos of his and Sally's New Year trip to the mountains of Northern Greece:

Mark and Teal in Zagori

Hi Simon just a few teasing photos for you to ponder over before you get over here to eat wildboar suppers, hare stiffados, royal roasts with pate's made from the finest chickla. Just remind me when you are here so I can go out and gather all of these of course. Cheers Mark

Η Πίνδος είναι η μεγαλύτερη οροσειρά της Ελλάδας

Still in the Highlands

The wind has risen, blowing mild from the south, buffeting the house, making it rattle. I persuaded mum to come out for a while. We went to the Black Isle, over the Kessock Bridge via Munlochie to Fort Rose. A rising westerly gale blew directly down the grey waters of the Moray Firth, the rougher for blowing against the flood.
"You walk the dogs. I'll stay in the car."

Mum would prefer to stay in her house but forces herself to go on expeditions when she's not feeling like it. She was glad to be home, to read and have tea.
"I do like the Black Isle. It always feels like it got passed by. It's not an island and certainly not since the Kessock Bridge but it feels like it's cut off from the mainland....He may have been a groper but I'm sure Strauss-Kahn was set up. Don't you think?"
She's finished a piece in the December NYRB by Edward Jay Epstein with schematics of the first and 28th floor of the New York Sofitel. I so like that magazine. It reminds me there are intelligent people out there thinking and writing about the world. I've enjoyed The Revolutionary Shias by Malise Ruthven in the same edition. reviewing Shi’ism: A Religion of Protest by Hamid Dabashi. I appreciate reading this the more for what I've learned from Dhiaa.

Shiism, as Hamid Dabashi explains in his challenging and brilliant new book, is a perfect foil for power but unimpressive as a modern state ideology..

I am avoiding all chores. Sharon feeds us - apart from snacks for lunch and tea, a succession of suppers - spagetti bolognese, kedgeree, shepherd's pie, steak and chips, macaroni cheese, biryani, rack of lamb, sausages and mash...All with extra treats, plus wine and cava and tea and coffee, along with puddings - crème brûlée, pot au chocolate, crème caramel, apple crumble, apple charlotte...Lin's tart on the phone, knowing all this, while she's fielding work at home, having succeeded in selling the Handsworth Helping Hands* tipper for a far better price than first quoted, giving us a healthy float to plan work using our transit van and all the tools, arranging meetings...

Hi All. I've arranged a meeting with Barry Toon (who runs the Selly Oak project) for Tuesday afternoon at 1.30p.m. Mike has already said he'd like to come. If Rachel from Trident Reach comes, that'll be three of us, which is enough really, but let me know if you particularly want to come as well. Questions we'll be asking Barry:
1. What free services do you offer and who to?
2. What 'paid for' services do you offer and who to?
3. How much do you charge for 'paid for' services?
4. What are your main grant sources?
We'll also be talking about charitable status, running costs, man-hours worked per week, employees, pay and employment rights, how clients are found, how 'membership' of the project works, how much admin time is necessary, work and finance recording systems.........if you think of anything to add to the list, please let me know before Tuesday. See you at the meeting on Thursday. Lin

She's also doing our tax returns including Amy's, and looking after her dad, taking him to Cheshire for his first preparatory appointment for radiotherapy.
Once back from our drive to the Black Isle, I left mum at home, content, and set out for a walk with the dogs, clambering up a steep slope through the pine plantation over ploughed ridges, fallen trunks, ditches, dodging low branches, the dogs dashing blithely about as I struggle to ascend the rough terrain of the wood.

In the woods above Inverarnie

I knew I'd meet a track before I was caught in the dark. I carry a torch. Once on the high forest road, I rested a moment, ate some chocolate, walked back to Westerlairgs which I've passed four times this last week. Then home to scones with butter, strawberry jam and tea. Mum asked me about my walk. She knows the ground so well; even though she's not been on her feet unaided for several years, she re-lives my walks, turn by turn. It's almost as if I'm competing with her in knowledge of local terrain, catching her with accounts of things that have changed. We got out things she and Sharon had bought for Amy, sorting and folding, for me to carry them home on Tuesday.

Sorting baby things

*formerly Central Handsworth Practical Care Project

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Latest reports within the IMF (via Jim Potts' blog). As the prospect of rescuing the Republic's economy weakens, people have been making choices....
Helena Smith for the Guardian, 13 May 2011 Greek crisis forces thousands of Athenians into rural migration. Comment on Democracy Street  and see 'the puzzling invisibility of the new'
Rachel Donadio for the New York Times 8 January 2012  With Work Scarce in Athens, Greeks Go Back to the Land
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Mark in Ano Korakiana has sent me a note:

Hi Simon...just letting you know that your xmas cards have arrived today... so many thanks for them will deliver around the village tomorrow...also just got my sister's xmas cards as well so - yes - the postal service is crap here. I am still waiting on a parcel that left the UK on the 13th of December and was last tracked in Andorra on the 23rd after that it has vanished. Cheers Mark

Blimey. Lin and I posted ours - to Mark and Sally, Paul and Cinta, Lefteris and Vasilik, Fortis and family and Effie and Adoni - about the same time as the parcel Mark says got lost in Andorra - over 1300 miles from Corfu. So did they lose it there or was it lost in Greece? No idea.