Joyous Opprtunities

So at her invitation  I saw my Director of Studies on Tuesday, just I think, for a morale boosting chat. Needless to say ID card and letter confirming my official registration have not yet arrived but I think that even I, pessimist that I am, am now convinced that this Ph D thing is real and is finally going to happen.

 

DoS is going to organise a video conference asap for me and the supervisory team followed by a face to face meeting in Glasgow later in the spring, so we are making progress and meanwhile the advice is to 'keep reading Anne' which is what I'm doing.

 

In fact when I left college I nipped to the library and found that they had had a bit of a shuffle around and had lots of new books over from the library in Stromness. Lots of stuff in the literature section that I hadn't come across before, so I came home on the bus hauling two huge books; a biography of Edwin Morgan and  the Collected Poems of Norman MacCaig. Only slightly more than peripherally relevant, but it's all grist to the mill.*

 

While I chatted with the DoS I was once again amazed by the number of the  luminaries of the Scottish Literary world whom she knows, and more than a little excited [star struck?] by the thought that I would be meeting quite a few of them myself in the foreseeable future. She summed it up for me really when she said 'The next five years for you Anne is just a series of joyous opportunities' and the phrase really struck.

 

So when I get discouraged, upset, frustrated, lose confidence, hit the wall, feel stupid or ignorant, all the things that I know will happen during the next few years, I'm going to come back to this post and remind myself that however difficult the moment might be, the process is life enhancing.

 

*I also borrowed a crime novel set in Norfolk recommended to me by a friend. Guess which of the three I read on the bus?

A Doctor Calls

I had a phone call from my GP's surgery this morning. Since I haven't seen the doctor for months this came very much out of the blue and worried me sick - and that was before I got to the phone.

 

Anyway GP said  he wanted to book me in for a bone scan in Aberdeen. At this point all sorts of horrible alarm bells started going off in my head; why? what's wrong with me? and why don't I know about it?

 

Well he said it was because of my age and my broken ankle. Apparently it counts as a 'fragility fracture' as opposed to breaking something when you fall from a great height onto a hard surface, and if I had broken my ankle ten years ago no-one would have cared. But now, at my much more advanced age,  it could be a warning sign of the onset of osteoporosis and better safe than sorry and he's sorry it means going to Aberdeen but could he go ahead and book it?

 

I said yes after a few questions about what the point of it all was; I mean why trek all the way to Aberdeen if the result is that you have got early signs of osteoporosis and there's nothing that can be done. Memories of my grandmother, who was given fizzy calcium tablets to take for about 15 years by the GP; we were told later that they did her no good because she was so old when she started taking them. But that was 40 years ago [how can I even remember things that happened 40 years ago?] and no doubt medicine has moved on.

 

So I shall wait to hear the date. I'm not really deep down worried about it, but I have to say that pro-active medicine like this, while a good thing in itself, can give you some worrying moments..

A Dark and Stormy Night...

...is what we had yesterday, followed by a not quite so dark but equally stormy day.

 

According to the Shipping Forecast, which we listen to avidly, Orkney had Gale Force 8 to Storm Force 10 winds overnight gusting to Violent Storm 11. And today recorded winds of 82 mph.

 

The ferries for today were cancelled yesterday and the barriers have been closed all day. That's all fairly standard stuff. Not quite so standard was the closure of several roads because of the strength of the tidal surge. It was sort of fun watching the sea gather itself up and dump itself on a house we almost bought on the other side of Watersound.

 

Knock on effects include no TV because the satellite isn't getting a signal, no postal deliveries and rationing our tea and coffee intake so that we don't run out of milk since the local shop won't be getting any more in until the winds drop and the barriers open. Let's hope that's tomorrow!

Where Do You Stand on Charm?

This is the clever book previously alluded to and I've been working my way through it. It's in three parts and the first part is called  Hugh McDiarmid and the Arts of Modern Scotland.

 

That's not terribly surprising of course. Hugh McDiarmid stands, a monolith,  in the history of  20th Century Scotland. No consideration of language, poetry, prose, criticism or politics in modern Scotland would be complete without reference to him. As he would have been the first to point out.

 

The thing is I have a problem with McDiarmid, and the problem is that, given what I know about the man,  I suspect that I would have loathed him on sight, and with what I would consider to be good reason.

 

But anyone who ever expresses doubt about McDiarmid is instantly silenced by others  who knew him, and assert that the doubters would, on meeting the great man, be captivated by his charm and end up an admirer like everyone else.

 

I don't buy that, and not because I think McDiarmid was devoid of charm. By all accounts he had it by the bucketload. But I don't like charm. I don't trust people who have it. It's insincere and specious and those who possess it use it ruthlessly to gain their own ends. I've been in rooms with charmers, watched them work and resisted them and yes, if you do that, you end up looking like a sulky teenager while everyone else gives them what they want and wonders why  you have to be such a wet blanket. 

 

But I'd rather be a wet blanket with her wits about her than someone who despised herself for falling for a charmer's hypocrisy.

 

So although the next few years will undoubtedly change my mind about lots of things, and I may well end up an admirer of McDiarmid's work, nothing will ever convince me that I'd have found him personally congenial.

 

Charm? Not a recommendation in my book.

Never say never - but there again....

There are some actors who I would watch in anything. Until last week I counted David Morrissey among their number.

Then I saw him in a trailer for an episode of the American horror series The Walking Dead.

I watched it.

I gather he will be in it again next week.

I won't be watching.

Can't help wondering if he needed the money that badly?

But then, could anyone need the money that badly?

I Is Tired

A few weeks ago a nice man called Innes rang up and asked if our holiday flat was available from tomorrow for two weeks. I stifled an urge to laugh at the thought that I was turning away tourists in droves at this time of year and told him yes, and he booked it. It wasn't for him, it was for two of his employees who were coming to Orkney to do some tidal energy monitoring right next to our friend Sue and they needed somewhere to stay and Sue had suggested our flat. Which was very kind of her and we're grateful.

 

It did mean though that we had to flog all the way over to Birsay this morninng, which is about as far away from where we live as you can get on Orkney without actually driving into the sea. That side of Orkney is also covered in snow, something which our own little corner of the county has so far avoided. And once we got there we had to clean the flat. Since the place hadn't been properly cleaned since after the last lot of guests left in September that gave us a bit to do. Still Sue turned up at one stage with a cake and we put the kettle on and had a chin wag, and I gave her the receipt for Innes' employees and strict instructions not to hand it over until they had given her the cheque for the rental and after about four hours really hard work the place was ready. And it looked good, very cosy and welcoming, if I do say it myself.

 

When we got home my ankle and my back both ached really badly so I settled myself in a chair with the TV remote to hand, a cat on my lap and my latest sock project in my hands. It's the most intricately patterened sock I have yet attempted, which wouldn't necessarily be saying much since I haven't tackled anything too advanced in the way of patterned socks until now; however this one is a huge step forwards and  I am pleased at how relatively quickly they are growing. They were a great stress buster/excuse not to look at the screen at various points in Whitechapel [don't ask me why I watch it because I really don't know].

 

I'm planning to spend part of tomorrow reading a Very Clever Book about poetry and art in Scotland, which I have to sort of tee myself up to as it's quite dense and involves me in looking properly at pictures and stopping every few pages to make sure I'm following the argument so far, and when I've done that I shall reward myself by doing the heel flap and turn on my sock. That sounds like a plan.

Do I Believe This?

I had a message from my putative  Director of Studies this morning saying that we have the green light, everything is good to go, paperwork off to Aberdeen and could she have a digital photo for my ID card.

 

I have no idea why anything is going via Aberdeen since UHI Admin is based in Inverness and the Post Graduate Studies part of UHI is administered from Oban, but I don't really care. Maybe Aberdeen (not part of UHI incidentally) is the only place with the technology for turning digital photos into student ID cards in the North of Scotland.

 

Since I have thought before that I am at the starting gate I am not getting excited about any of this yet. But it may be progress.

 

In another part of the forest, I finished the make-it-in-a-week junper and it actually took nine days, due, as mentioned previously, to my inability to work up any enthusiasm for sewing bits of knitting together.  I'm pleased with how it turned out; when I tried it on the only thing I didn't  like about it was the body inside it. Picture forthcoming in the planned craft round up of the month at the end of January. Although jumper will be laid out on some furnitore rather than being modelled.

 

And even more good news? the car passed its MOT this morning. Done locally, not in Inverness where I'm sure they would have found some invisible but  corroded hydraulic pipes to replace at great expense.  I said darkly to OH  'It Just Shows' and he pretended to agree. He thinks that if he panders to my insistence on getting stuff done on the  car here and not on mainland Scotland for the next twelve months  I will give in and  allow him another Citroen when the current one needs replacing.

 

To which the only thing I can say is this.

 

Not. A. Chance.